Mainuddin, a Finance 11th batch student of Dhaka University, suffers to get up after getting beaten brutally in hands of Bangladesh Chhatro League (BCL) activists allegedy belonging to the Jasim Uddin Hall outfit at the campus. (Photo: Banglar Chokh)

The last week of October is already a time that will be always remembered for the darkest events of Bangladeshi politics took place in 2006 after Awami League activists took the streets at today’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s call of ‘Logi Boitha Protest’. Six members from Awami League’s political opponents lost lives after being severely beaten by logi-boitha. Later Awami League claimed they also lost an activist in countrywide political clashes.

The photo above shows Mainuddin, a student of Finance 11th Batch in Dhaka University whom their  League ‘intutions’ considered as an activist of Hizbut Tahrir, the recently banned Islamic outfit, is left fallen on the street after a group of Bangladesh Chhatro League (BCL) activists launched attack on him. After the Awami League government took office, the target list of BCL was limited to Jatiyotabadi Chhatro Dal (JCD) and Bangladesh Chhatro Shibir, whom they have even killed more than a dozen of in last months. Now it appears that the recent ban on Hizbut Tahrir by the government has lifted the organization’s status to be a political opponent of BCL and now its activists are becoming assaults targes no matter if detected only by wild intutions like the one shown above.

Now a question does worth of being asked that, the recent ban that Awami League government has put on Hizbut Tahrir to operate any further, has it been just a ban or a license issued for Chhatro League to assault them or anyone calling him a ‘Hizbut Tahrir’ and for the progressive-cum-hypocrite news bodies like Prothom Alo and Daily Star to keep mum seeing Hizbut Tahrir men bleeding on the streets?

News Details,

At Daily Jaijaidin
At The Independent

News agencies keeping mum?

BDNews24 appears to be one of our the news-bodies who give the highest exposure of how Islamic outfits 'mashroomed' in Bangladesh. But a DU student brutally beaten and thrown bleeding on streets just because Chhatro League (BCL) suspected him to be Hizbut Tahrir, doesn't appear to be worthy of an exposure.

After coming by the incident I searched for details in a handful of news sites and astonishingly it was almost nowhere. A site called Khilafah.com, the Daily Star, Jaijaidin and The Independent were all who reported it. Many other news agencies especially BDNews24 who has got much of the acclaim of a 24-hour news site, I don’t know whether this was a failure of a deliberate ignorance, has not published anything about it. I mean, have the days come that a Dhaka University student is beaten brutally on the streets by ruling party student wing at broad daylight and it ain’t something to appear in news sites?

The recent attack on the young ruling party lawmaker Fazle Noor Taposh MP was not the first among deadly forays over politicians of Bangladesh. A common phrase in our country goes like, “where the murderers of Bangabandhu & Ziaur Rahman are never held, there will be no surprise if other high profile murders are let getaway.” Even after the unparallel massacre inside Bangladesh Riffles HQ at Pilkhana, Dhaka, many told that “the murderers here too will getaway and we won’t mind because we’ve seen trials on murders of Sheikh Mujib and Ziaur Rahman unsolved and it doesn’t matter whether we do mind or else”.

Nobody has anything to deny the fact that most of the legal fights for assassinations or attempts on high profile statesperson have not been properly conclusive just because the government at office has tried to politically utilize the issues, has ignored unhealthy diversion of investigation for sake of discomforting domestic political rivals. This is a tragic fact that’s applicable for almost all trials of the kind.

General population often gets annoyed at the common obsession that our politicians have of debating past sour issues. Here some sentences about past have been written just to amplify the fact that, may be a powerful bomb flew toward a member of the house all of a sudden shook the nation, but it won’t be a surprise if his legal fight too is found to have the same fate of being on pursuit of a zero.

Fazle Noor Taposh MP, although a very young lawmaker and is in quite an early stage of his expectedly brighter political future, has been put on the top of the current political focus by the attempt and it has rang to the minds of us that indeed Fazle Noor Taposh is stringed fervently to various high profile political concerns. He is,

• a notable panel lawyer in the trial on Bangabandhu’s assassination,
• a figure related to the controversy of government’s unpopular dialogue attempt with BDR mutineers at the late night of 25 February, 2009,
• an anticipated select by Sheikh Hasina to fight the upcoming mayoral elections in Dhaka for Awami League,
• and again a very close aide to Sheikh Hasina, almost the most trusted one having a political future brighter than almost anyone of his stage.

These are few positions we consider when we think about how Fazle Noor Taposh MP has been politically being since his appearance to acclaim.

Now let also have a serial of what the senior figures in the ruling party or the government have been saying over the matter.

Advocate Sahara Khatun, the Minister of Interior who already has seen the wrath of few AL leaders for possible security negligence, told “Taposh attack is ‘linked’ to Mujib killer” .

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Syed Ashraful Islam, General Secretary of Awami League and Minister of LGRD & Cooperatives, told “the nation believes the killers of Bangabandhu, the extreme communal and anti-liberation forces were involved with the attack” .

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Barrister Mahbubey Alam, the Attorney General and leader of a pro-AL lawyers’ group, told “The attack on Taposh proves that those who do not want the trial of the murder of Bangabandhu are trying to become active.”

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Barrister Shafique Ahmed, the Minister of Law, told “Taposh attack aimed to save Mujib’s killers”

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Dr. Dipu Moni, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, told “The attack was made by those who don’t want progress in trial of Bangabandhu’s murder”.

I don’t understand that why these senior AL leaders and others are pushing the matter to be a concern of Bangabandhu assassination trial. I mean it can be a fact that those who don’t want the trial being conclusive orchestrated the attack. But this is just a possibility, a speculation; so are the others that attack on Taposh could be a knock-off attempt by his domestic political rivals.

There has been a complaint made to police and they will investigate it, they will have to do it to dig for the truth. At this stage of investigation where nobody knows more than it was a bomb, the series of statements from AL leaders is just looking like a planned media manipulation where the immense influences are being made to manipulate public opinions. Questions may arise that how the ministers and the Attorney General are so confident that the attackers are linked to Bangabandhu’s assassins. Did the attackers tell them before bombing? Or did Bangabandhu’s assassins confirm that the new generation carnage will take place on Taposh?

This is highly concerning that why respective AL leaders and also the party’s Central Working Committee in absence of Sheikh Hasina is pressurizing the people to believe the attack having a link to Bangabandhu’s trial. What’s their source of confidence, what’s their source of information and finally what’s the motive of such premature statements? There are other grounds those have to be considered, why we have not heard a single person anywhere to talk about that?

Bangladeshi people have already learnt that they have a legal system that is not blind. This system can smell one’s political identity, can see the height of one’s political influence and finally can realize one’s power. The system drives itself in accordance with those feelings that a legal system is immensely malicious to have. Forgoing the attackers of a Member of Parliament won’t be a surprise because murderers of the Presidents and Prime Ministers in this country are let getaway.

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Barrister Fazle Noor Taposh MP, came under attack by what appears to be a bomb charged to the vehicle he was about to ride in.

What has happened has been disgraceful and very much damaging for Bangladesh. Investigation will have to be taken into special consideration as this young lawmaker is stringed to several high profile state affairs,

• Fazle Noor Taposh MP is part of the legal fight in Bangabandhu Murder Case representing the state.
• Fazle Noor Taposh MP has been part of a controversy explaining an unpopular dialogue attempt of the government with Peelkhana mutineers of 25 February, 2009.

Explosion took place near this Toyota Corona EXiV ST180 (left) that was carrying/about-to-carry the young AL lawmaker and son of Sheikh Fazlul Haque Moni, Barrister Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh MP. (Photo: BDNews24)

For detailed descriptions, follow-ups and updates, here are few news links,

In BDNews24

In Focus Bangla

Clockwise: Mohammed Salahuddin Chowdhury, Mohammad Shahjahan, Nurul Haque Miah, Abul Kashem Chowdhury, Shakila Yasmin and Shabbir Ahmed.

Immediately after the horrible 9/11 attacks, the perception about Bangladeshi fatalities was that at least 50 of our countrymen have been missing in the rubles, dead or else. Watching the twin towers of the World Trade Center emitting smokes almost like two sky-scrapping chimneys, initially very few people overseas were concerned about knowing how much people of what nationalities have been victims, apart from those who knowingly had family members, coworkers or friends working in New York’s Lower Manhattan that day.

People of approximately 60 nationalities were among the victims. The initial perception of around 50 Bangladeshis killed was later corrected as there were 12 Bangladeshi victims documented. Now this information too ain’t assuring as there were talks that there could be some Bangladeshis working around but ‘not documented’, might have been in terms of legal measures. This means disappointment, that the actual number of how many Bangladeshis were killed in 11 September 2001 attacks won’t be known ever.

For someone looking for stuffs about the Bangladeshi victims of 9/11, the initial disgust will be offered by the authority of Bangladesh, that’s our government. Throughout a staggering hunt for information about brothers & sisters we lost that day, one will completely fail to get something that can be thought is given or provided by any agencies or departments of Bangladesh government. It’s understandable that during the attack the administration at home was to execute a general election of nearly 70 million voters, so it couldn’t respond at once. But not only years passed rather it’s being almost a decade after a number of Bangladeshi deaths overseas, we rarely found any of our government people to pronounce a word about it or to provide at least some statistics. It can be that we ain’t keen enough to get them so they ain’t keen enough to provide.

Among 12 confirmed Bangladeshis who were killed on September 11, 2001 there are Mohammad Sadeque Ali, Shabbir Ahmed, Nurul Haque Miah, Nurul’s wife Shakila Yasmin, Mohammad Shahjahan, Mohammed Salahuddin Chowdhury, Abul Kashem Chowdhury, Navid Hossain, Osman Ghani and Ashfaq Ahmed. As the Bangladesh High Commission at United States has a confirmation of 12 victims, definitely there are two more names those I’ve failed to mention here. However all the mentioned 10 were the citizens of United States of America and except Ashfaq Ahmed, Navid Hossain & Osman Ghani, I can provide at least something about seven others.

Mohammad Sadeque Ali

Mohammad Sadeque Ali, 62, according to a former Bangladeshi diplomat Syed Muazzem Ali, was a newspaper vendor. He lived in New York’s Jackson Heights with his wife Mumtaz. During the attack Ali was at Lower Manhattan presumably somewhere too-close-to or inside the World Trade Center and was later never found.

Shabbir Ahmed

Shabbir Ahmed

Shabbir Ahmed, 47, worked in the famous ‘Windows on The World’ restaurant on the 106th floor of the WTC North Tower. Migrated to US from Bangladesh in 1981, he loved the job he had in ‘Windows on The World’ and he stayed there for 11 years. Ahmed was married to Jeba and the couple had three children. Ahmed became able to meet his dream of sending all of them for college education. At the time of Ahmed’s death, a son named Tanvir was 16-year old and a daughter that went to Brooklyn College were 19-year old. The family’s home is at Marine Park, Brooklyn, New York. At the time a plane penetrated the tower, Ahmed was at work in his beloved workplace with 89 other coworkers including Mohammed Salahuddin Chowdhury, another Bangladeshi employee in there, reportedly were serving 76 guests; none of the people survived.

Mohammad Shahjahan

Mohammad Shahjahan

Mohammad Shahjahan, 41, lived with his wife Mansura at Spring Valley, a neighborhood at the border of towns Ramapo and Clarkstown at Rockland County, New York. He was a Computer Administrator in the professional service provider & insurance brokerage farm Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. (MMC)., which held offices between floors 93 & 100, the ultimate impact zone of the attack. 295 employees including Shahjahan and two other Bangladeshis, Nurul Haque Miah & Shakila Yasmin, were working at MMC at the time of attack; among them nobody survived.

Abul Kashem Chowdhury

Abul Kashem Chowdhury

Abul Kashem Chowdhury, 30, was 2nd generation Bangladeshi-American, child of a former Bangladeshi diplomat. He resided in New York with his family of his wife, parents, a brother and two sisters. A College of Staten Island graduate, Chowdhury was about to pursue a career on computer expertise, which even he had one at financial services farm Cantor Fitzgerald L.P. as a Senior Assistant Analyst. His brother Abul Qaiser Chowdhury said that he and his brother worked to support their family; have been like two arms to their loved ones. During the attack Chowdhury was on the 103rd floor, who even called his brother after the plane made the hit and he was approaching to come down, but the communication was tragically brief and everything was finished in hours. Months before the attack Chowdhury got married to Young Kim, a 2nd generation Korean-American. Kim, remarking his husband as a ‘devoted moviegoer’, was about to go to movies with him after work on the fateful day.

Mohammed Salahuddin Chowdhury

Mohammad Salahuddin Chowdhury

Mohammed Salahuddin Chowdhury, 38, was a Queens, New York resident where he lived with his wife Baraheen Ashrafi. Salahuddin, a Dhaka University physics graduate, migrated to US in 1987. In US he studied real-estate and also obtained a diploma in Computer Science. Initially he worked in Baltimore but later came to New York for something better would come up. He decided to stay in New York in anyways so he started working in the famous ‘Windows on The World’ restaurant as a waiter. Salahuddin & Baraheen had a 6-year old boy. In the time of attacks Baraheen was pregnant and was due to operate at late hours of the fateful date. In fact Salahuddin usually attended the work in evening hours but that day chose to serve in the morning so that he could stay with his wife to the operation. Farqad Chowdhury, born 48-hours after deadly attack took away his father with 88 other coworkers, has been perhaps one of the first 9/11 orphans to be born. HBO’s 9/11 documentary “In Memoriam: New York City, 9/11/01” has covered the tragic fate of Salahuddin’s family.

Nurul Haque Miah

Nurul Haque Miah

Nurul Haque Miah, 35, was born in Bangladesh to an immensely pious family in 1966. A mid-80s immigrant to US, Nurul started working for Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc., (MMC) in 1986. In 1999 he married Shakila Yasmin; an early-90s immigrant whom he met in a friend’s wedding in 1995 & dated for 5 years. Nurul had a very good reputation at work & was awarded as recognition of merit in MMC. Nurul studied and had a degree in audiovisual technology, as the final position he had in MMC was an Audiovisual Technologist where he worked for 15 years. Nurul’s workplace was on the 93rd floor. But during the attack he was in a meeting on the 99th floor, while his wife Shakila, also an MMC employee, was on the 97th floor; MMC was a tenant holding 8 floors from 93rd to 100th. To mention, all these floors got the worst impact after the plane made hit especially the floors 93th-99th through where the plane actually penetrated, let as assume Nurul and his wife to be two of the very initial victims of the deadly attack.

Shakila Yasmin

Shakila Yasmin

Shakila Yasmin, 26, wife of Nurul Haque Miah, went to US with her parents Sharif A. Chowdhury and Shawkat Ara Sharif when she was 16. She did her S.S.C in Bangladesh and in US got admitted in Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. Obtaining US citizenship in the sixth year of stay, she graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1999 with a degree of Management Information Systems. As told before, she was married to Nurul Haque Miah in 1999, joined her husband’s workplace MMC as a Computer Assistant one year prior to the deadly attack. She was on the 93rd floor when the first plane penetrated the building.

Renaming Brooklyn Streets after Shakila and Nurul

Shakila Yasmin and Nurul Haque Miah

Nurul and Shakila lived in Brooklyn, New York and they had a very good relationship with the neighbors. One of their neighbors Diane Hunt, touched by her neighbors’ tragic deaths, took an initiative to propose renaming of the street in Brooklyn in names of Shakila and Nurul, took the matter to the city council. At her proposition and consent from the fellow councilors, the Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg (world’s 8th richest man, the Republican politician who owns Bloomberg L.P) passed a bill 746-A on 29 December, 2005 that renamed a total 67 streets of New York, including the Evington Avenue and the Third Avenue in Brooklyn those got the new name “Shakila Yasmin & Nurul Haque Miah 9-11 Memorial Way”. Mayor Bloomberg, fellow New Yorker Hunt and others who consented in paying respect to our fallen countrymen are yet to receive gratitude officially from Bangladesh. You know we have a lot of real works to do than just go thanking people like recently dead Senator Ted Kennedy who was singled out in US Senate just for talking for Bangladesh in 1971, or the Jewish NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg who honored Bangladesh by naming streets whereas he could choose from people of 59 other nationalities.

© AFP

Majority of the Bangladeshi cricket fans no matter in times of disappointment or pleasure, rarely have denied the fact that the national team contains skilled players required for a pleasant end of a game. It can be that people around have been disappointed immensely for a batsman’s getting out in almost the same way he gets out in most of the occasions; or the one which happens to be more usual for Bangladesh throughout the time that is sudden collapse of the batting order. But rarely has it been told that they couldn’t do because they weren’t meant to do.

However while talking about what they still need and is quite difficult to have, is the consistency of their better performances. In other sense and though it’s a fact that not necessarily a winning game is always the one with good cricket, we can interpret that one of the things the tigers were still looking for has been the consistency of winning. Bangladesh’s consecutive outfighting of Zimbabwe and West Indies can be taken to set up as what we repeatedly call Bangladesh team to have required for years.

Beside good cricket from both the sides a better contribution from the neutral part of the game also seems as a mandatory, which Shane Warne has recently appeared to be concerned about. Recently he was found to lambaste the present day umpiring stating, “The standard of umpiring is as low as I’ve known it in 20 years.” Well, let not just take few disputable decisions to specify a general deterioration. Especially in case of relating the matter with time, it has to be accepted that the advanced use of an advanced technology have made some stuffs quite outcast and mistakes at the grounds are now exposed in a better way. But what really makes us take seriously that are consecutively disputed decisions from certain umpires have very scant record of accountabilities or dramatic improvement.

It really hurts to accommodate any criticism about the ultimate decider of the game in a post-game talk. But talks really do favor in such situations where it sometimes turns to be unbearable and an explication comes up as precedence.

For example we must not mind if Asoka De Silva’s umpiring is brought to attention to at least some extent. Bangladesh team already has received unexpected damages by what appeared to have been disputable decisions of the Sri Lankan umpire. Bangladesh’s tours to Pakistan in 2003 and to West Indies this year are the noted ones.

Asoka as a cricketer has however been impressive in his test debut where he bowled stood nearly as a solid obstacle on ways of the Indian scorers in Colombo back in 1985. As an umpire, well his decisions gave births to few notable flaps. Considering the fact that technology nowadays does even a cruder exposure of man’s mistakes at instance and instead of just regretting a sum of ‘regrettable’ decisions at the international level, there can be suggested a tradeoff between technological aspects and their acceptable contributions to evade any contentiousness among the people around.

The post-game at Sher-e-Bangla Stadium, Mirpur, Dhaka.

Sunil Gavaskar once has regretted a fact which also we often do; that as the time has advanced it has took away what once was innocence in cricket they had back in their times. Gavaskar told Ayaz Memon on 10 July this year, “There was an innocence about the game when I was kid, which is perhaps not quite there now. I think I would prefer the innocence of the game that was there when I was a teenager.” Things take place which make us think in the same way too. Like, there was some sort of celebration among the fielders in the ground after an opponent batsman made a half-century. It ain’t like such things have disappeared nowadays, but the players are aware that the TV cameras are on them, according to Gavaskar.

After the 4th ODI of Bangladesh-Zimbabwe series in Bulawayo this year, Tamim Iqbal did set something easing Sunil Gavaskar and ourselves too. Charles Coventry’s spectacular 194 not-out ultimately came at nothing for Zimbabwe as Iqbal’s decisive 154 did it sealing the match for Bangladesh. It was the ‘Man of the Match’ trophy that Iqbal was co-chosen for with Coventry and it’s where our point lies. Tamim Iqbal, who’s steady and epic 154 won the match for Bangladesh, stated “I congratulated him (Coventry) and told him that he could keep the trophy. He deserved it… You don’t make world records every day. It was a truly magnificent innings.” That was a good one to ease us as well as Sunil Gavaskar; really a winning habit and else.

This has also been published in the 23 August, 2009 issue of Weekly Economic Times.

Prothom Alo and Daily Star. I actually don’t blame myself while being highly skeptical about two most notable newspapers of our country, because they practically were correlated to my association with blogging in past. I remember the role that Prothom Alo and Daily Star played amid the 1/11 misrule in fact when I started active blogging, where I and many other bloggers can quite rightfully state based upon facts that they were becoming the engineers to establish the public support for the 1/11 regime which appeared to have been having ill-motives against Bangladesh. Whenever we had a confusion about what the then ‘Lord of the Rings’ Gen. Moeen U. Ahmed were trying to say or do, we were used to read Prothom Alo or Daily Star editorials or others’ write-ups inside them. In fact their articles or news reports at that time were written in such way that Gen. Moeen and his conmen were being quite well explained.

Prothom Alo and Daily Star claim themselves to have the highest circulation among those of their competitors, which I don’t deny. And considering them as two leading newspapers of Bangladesh, they have so far faced handful of allegations which I believe no other leading newspaper in Bangladesh did and in most of the countries are too much rare to face. The series of allegations include with, being weapons to knock down their owner’s business rivals, being an unofficial media body to provide subsequent explications of an undemocratic and unlawful government’s series of ill-motivated steps etc. Deeds they did to viciously support the undemocratic 1/11 government should be enough to completely discourage number of people who could have respect on them as honest journalists.

What Salman F. Rahman today has told, I consider it to be his right to defend himself if someone throws dirt to him. We remember that after the unlawful grab attempt of a Gulshan Avenue residential building by group of people claiming themselves to be conmen of Mahfuzur Rahman holding a signboard which says “This Property Belongs to ATN Bangla”, Salman F. Rahman being a relative to the actual owner of the building got involved in the case to support his family member, and that was the beginning of a series of ATN Bangla reports against both Salman F. Rahman and BEXIMCO. As similar sort of allegations have come forward about Prothom Alo and Daily Star for a number of times before, we cannot mark someone to be completely without logic if he says a same affair might have taken place between Salman F. Rahman and Prothom Alo & Daily Star. More importantly, according to Daily Star editor Mahfuz Anam’s claim that they are committed to present substantial news to their readers, Prothom Alo and Daily Star were supposed to carry out at least a follow-up of the Gulshan Avenue flap, which they eventually didn’t do. So Prothom Alo and Daily Star’s general claim having ‘social responsibilities’ eventually becomes arguable.

I just can put a shortlist of their assistances. Incidentally and now I feel it was most unfortunate that it were Prothom Alo and Daily Star who gave me the first details of the 1/11 coup d’état. However as the 1/11 regime accommodate some tasks in their plans those where necessary for the harmonious run of a state, distinctive parts of their plans can be marked as they were not completely malicious. These not-malicious plans are often chosen to state that “1/11 also did some good things”. These ‘good things’ were given good coverage by Prothom Alo and Daily Star which I don’t think to be disappointing, and to some extent I was not suspecting about their roles or any of its appeared-to-be-association with the 1/11 government till those moments. But after the 1/11 government was on its political plans like minus-1/2, gagging major parties, creating king’s factions in name of reformists, forcing media to filter presentations, torturing journalists, politicians, teachers, students etc., I attentively noticed that Prothom Alo and Daily Star were being at very effective assistance where number of stories were being made to help the government have a convinced group of people and an apparent public support to their position completely against the ongoing political system. Following this notice, my delivery boy was told that no Prothom Alo and Daily Star should be seen in my house any further. Yes, I subscribed both and I unsubscribed both.

Now, one can ask if I have made detached from two newspapers. Well I haven’t been detached. When any important issue takes place and becomes attention of the majority media, I become curious about what role Prothom Alo & Daily Star are playing and I get in touch with their online edition. In fact their apparent apathy on the grab attempt on that Gulshan Avenue residential building came by my eyes when I specially checked that what’ve been their remark about allegation on their partial media partner (as ATN Bangla and Daily Star works together online in some cases) ATN Bangla in that illegal operation.

Anyways, about the beginning of 1/11, their reports really gave me and most of their readers an idea that the 10 January late night at Bangabhaban was really a scene full of merriness where D. Iajuddin Ahmed laterally handed over the state-running scepter to hands of the then military chief Gen. Moeen U. Ahmed. In fact the book written by Gen. Moeen U. Ahmed almost echoed what was reported by those newspapers on January 11, 2007. These ‘truths’ started being differed after other officials of Bangabhaban who were present during the overthrow and who were notable ‘non-military’, started to open mouths. Claims of the then Press Secretary of the President hint that Bangabhaban that night was an exact stereotype of how a presidential palace becomes amid a coup d’état; military officials in every rooms, regular house officials with faces like they were looking at ghosts, raiding military officials threatening Bangabhaban officials, officials getting to the President with prepared papers and having them signed etc. As the topic Press Secretary has come, I must mention that Syed Fahim Munaim, who was chosen as the Press Secretary to Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed, was a Daily Star official prior to his appointment to the Chief Advisor’s office.

Incidentally the political targets of the 1/11 regime have been interesting matches with Prothom Alo and Daily Star targets to be defamed with series reports, substantial or insubstantial. Now those newspapers can defend this that the matches have been coincidental or they were simply doing the duties of ideal journalists. But we, the people who read those (at least once have read) newspapers, have opportunities of their analysis and do know that there exists a term called ‘yellow journalism’, won’t like to be fed and satisfied with these fancy ‘social responsibility’ explanations. People will play with the facts. And the claim that Prothom Alo and Daily Star were party to the promotion of unconstitutional and unlawful regime does have facts to back.

At least this has to be appreciated that Salman F. Rahman stood vocal against Prothom Alo and Daily Star despite many of their targets simply had things forgone or dealt by other means. I will expect that the information that Rahman provided have been substantial. For sake of better acceptability of the claims Salman F. Rahman has made, I will suggest that the matter should be taken to the court as soon as possible so that there can be set an exemplary judicial action against Prothom Alo and Daily Star, if Rahman’s claims are found evident. I also wish courage to the honorable judges that before ensuring justice against the practice of any illegitimate journalism, they will overcome the uneasiness of possibilities that they also can become suitable targets of Prothom Alo and Daily Star.

Group of responsible personalities including government people and the Indian diplomat, have been showing unpalatable stubbornness over the Tipaimukh Dam issue.

Dr. Dipu Moni’s remark about Indian High Commissioner Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty that he breached a diplomat’s code of conduct was not her first remark to be considered as a flap. She received spectacular criticisms after forgoing an Indian journalist who marked Bangladesh as a ‘buffer state’ in a press conference presided by her. People from the top brass of present Awami League government power structure have set some more examples of being kind to forgo a couple of must-protest commentaries of people associated with India. The most recent one was Dipu Moni’s presence in a seminar where Indian High Commissioner added the adjective ‘so-called’ while naming Bangladeshi experts, especially those who are critical to India’s unpopular Tipaimukh dam. After the Chakravarty’s flawless conduct, BNP’s lawmaker Adv. Mahbubuddin Khokon, who is also BNP’s sole representative to the parliamentary body for foreign affairs, demanded immediate expulsion of the rowdy diplomat.

Following Khokon’s demand, Dr. Dipu Moni’s popular remark about Chakravarty’s breaching the code of conduct was almost covering up the controversy that she caused by her silence against humiliation of Bangladesh. Now, it’s to be noted that Dr. Dipu Moni became a part of several events where she received criticisms by either her humiliating silence, or her apparent incompetence to put thrashing replies against what it’s been insulting remark against Bangladesh; and throughout all these Awami League’s attention to her activities never became public. But at a certain point Awami League top brass became really tensed about her statements and took no time to differ what she told about the rowdy diplomat. After no time from Dr. Dipu Moni became coldly vocal about Chakravarty’s rowdiness, Awami League’s spokesperson and the Minister of Local Government and Cooperatives Syed Ashraful Islam said that he at no point thinks that Chakravarty has breached a diplomat’s code of conduct.

Ramesh Sen, the Minister of Water Resources, has done most of the contributions to the series of erratic speeches over Tipaimukh Dam issue. The recent of his performances has been utterly denying that Begum Khaleda Zia has ever sent a letter to the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Khaleda Zia’s letter to the Prime Minister over her concerns about Tipaimukh has been covered by entire of the media, which our minister Ramesh Sen has confidently denied to have ever taken place.

The Tipaimukh Dam issue has seen more passes than sometimes satirically presented Dutch ‘total football’ could ever have produced or suggested. We don’t know who were midfielders, attackers or defenders, but the passes have been subsequently carried out by the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Water Resources, and Environment & Forest, without much of the senses of their particular roles. Whenever the responsible individuals received stern quizzes about the issue, they either kept passing it to other offices, or made remarks those are solely enough to humiliate the sovereignty of a nation.

The Minister of Commerce Col. Faruk Khan, who in accordance with his official functions wasn’t supposed to be concerned with the issue, claimed all of a sudden that the Bangladeshi experts who are being critical to Tipaimukh issue don’t know anything. Following his statement, Chakravarty made two subsequent comments; one is that the protest against Tipaimukh issue was politically ill-motivated, and the other is no laws on earth could bar India from building Tipaimukh dam. Quoting Chakravarty, Minister of Communication Abul Hossain also told the protest against Tipaimukh dam is insubstantial. Minister of Water Resources Ramesh Sen, who did something more serious than a quotation, told that if there is any negative impact of Tipaimukh dam, Bangladesh should concede the damages at least for sake of the alliance with her greater neighbor.

As it has been told earlier, this series of comments is solely enough to humiliate the sovereignty of a nation. The present government as well as the ruling party, and most importantly Syed Ashraful Islam who was in a hurry to reestablish the submissiveness of his government to the Indian authority by differing Dr. Dipu Moni’s cold protest within hours, should get the note that friendship cannot be imposed. You just cannot pick up a group of people and ask them to recite “Bangladesh and India are friends”, who already are holding newspapers with headlines of Bangladeshi frontier population body-counts to the BSF bullets. Or, you cannot just ask people to accept long-lasting damages just for sake of alliance with a nation which appoints ‘so-called’ diplomats to meddle in our internal politics and humiliate our sovereignty.

People won’t accept speeches from a minister like Ramesh Sen hints to sacrifice Bangladeshi resources for sake of India’s friendship, or of lawmakers like Abdur Razzaq states Bangladesh can make up her desertification by importing Tipaimukh produced power; hence Bangladesh can accept both her desertification and Indian bills just to have power produced in Tipaimukh. These comments hint their loyalties being to something else than the sovereignty of Bangladesh.

From left: Gen. Moeen U. Ahmed, Brig-Gen. Fazlul Bari, Maj-Gen. A.T.M Amin, Lt-Gen. Masud Uddin Chowdhury

Although Gen. Moeen U. Ahmed claimed his 11 January, 2007 unlawful intervention to be something other than a typical coup d’état, the significance of his acts have been too crudely typical. Almost all of the initiatives he took were typical; saving the nation from a nearing ‘civil war’, proposition of all out political reformation, crackdown over corruption etc. Actually there don’t remain a lot more cover-ups that a military ruler can use to defend his outspoken unlawfulness. So the mentioned lollypops were the instruments Gen. Moeen used to form up a façade of his unconstitutional and unlawful regime, suspending the fundamental rights those the people of an independent sovereign state can expect to have.

I’ve heard many people to claim the events of early January 2007 could have triggered a civil war in Bangladesh. It’s highly arguable that whether crying out the imminence of a civil war was really a substantial speculation or was just an excuse to overthrow a uniform government. Such excuses can eventually leave us skeptical because although adversary political activists took the streets no matter whatever ratio they had, no parts of the belligerents were recognized to have ‘military’ wings to drive through a ‘civil war’. At least Gen. Moeen U. Ahmed surely was not a Patton or a Monty to ‘give a chop’ to everything within a night that could have instrumented a countrywide civil war. So probably it was just an excuse to be used to form the public image of the setup that Moeen U. Ahmed with his errand men appeared to have done.

Moeen, however, had to be at good terms with the Indian authority. To mention, his relationship with India has been considerably better than any other military leaders of Bangladesh, becoming the only Bangladesh Army Chief of Staff to be befriended by India's far-right political masterminds.

Now for sake of arguments, I can be looked for to be asked, should Moeen have waited for the civil war getting truly imminent? Well I like to rule out the issue of a civil war, because for a country like Bangladesh which took less than 20 years from her birth to take the track of a consistent democracy, which in fact has had democracy smoothly and praiseworthily running for 16 long years, a civil war just for two conflicting political parties happens to be too fictitious. In fact as a country recognized to have moderate political and religious views, the civil war issue should have been taken as an insult to Bangladesh.

It’s arguable that whether the sudden intervention, or let me say the 1/11 coup d’état can be justified considering the then situation. Some or many people haven’t been disappointed after completely unlawful and unconstitutional sudden intervention of a man and suspension of people’s fundamental rights for indefinite period of time. People haven’t been disappointed at once because they were confused that whether they had lived better in past couple of months in the then atmosphere. Series of street agitations and two party’s being distant everyday turned Bangladeshi politics to severe disarray. Senior leaders of both the parties were set to negotiate and work a solution out but they could give nothing but smiles after they met. So the series of violence and an almost stalemate of Bangladesh, they have been failure of politicians, not politics. But after taking over the state machine what Gen. Moeen U. Ahmed was after has not been just politicians, he was after politics along with all the apparatuses he could have had a control over, legitimately or else.

We often see commentators among us who appear to have allergies of a system other than democracy, especially if it comes as a subject to military takeover of the state machine. Certain class of people now suddenly appear to be looking for rooms to thank Gen. Moeen at for least something he did. After considerably a protracted quest, its told that whatsoever Moeen U. Ahmed once initiated, have come to an end by resuming the democratic process, so he is to be thanked. In fact a military ruler who overthrew a uniform authority which was a party to state’s democratic process, if can be that fortunate ending up by resuming the democratic process, righteously can be considered as something better than just money lending, thus deserves a Novel Peace Prize.

However the Sheikh Hasina government does contain some of Awami League personalities who will like to give these kingpins real hard time.

But the immediate next democratic government of Moeen’s 1/11 rule didn’t act in the way that of a Novel Peace Prize contender should have acted. Ordinances the 1/11 cabinet once passed, the democratic government turned them into laws. Breaching of the constitutions the 1/11 regime frequently did, the democratic government desperately avoids to sue those matters. Not only has this, a cabinet member at the government of Moeen’s ‘resumed’ democracy, stated that Moeen U. Ahmed has been an Abraham Lincoln in the context of Bangladesh. It’s merely unbelievable that how a person under whose command politicians were tortured, university teachers were jailed and tortured, under whose command the fundamental rights of people were suspended, under whose command journalist was beaten half to death for criticizing him, can be compared with Abraham Lincoln. And it appears things won’t remain up to just comparison with great statesmen. Instead of dealing with the allegations, instead of suing for ousting democracy and hundred more criminal offenses at least attributed to have been done, there have been authoritative talks that there can be rewards for. And eventually this reward part, though haven’t taken place yet, explains everything.

*****

This post has also been published in The Weekly Economic Times, 21 June, 2009 issue.

The following day of Bangladesh’s humiliating defeat to Ireland in ICC T20 World Cup, was my first day at the new campus of North South University. We had no idea about how much time it would take to reach the new campus so we were pretty early from home. On the way while crossing American Embassy, my friend Saikat who I was riding with, and me, for sake of keeping on exuberance of the new campus, made a deal that throughout the time we will avoid any discussion not only on Bangladesh Cricket team but also of T20 World Cup. Both of us rather we found hundreds like us in the campus later who abode by this deal.

"...Actually he ain’t to be blamed because he didn’t learn to act with modesty; not when it’s a humiliation, and not on earth whiles its celebrations..."

It’s undeniable that there were definite reasons for Bangladeshi cricket fans refusing talks on the team’s humiliating incompetence in T20 World Cup. Bangladesh played two matches where the players will like to put result against India as an important factor to their defence against the anticipated probe over their tournament performance.

Today, one of the selector, I missed his name, was talking to a private FM radio station and was desperately defending the national team. He said the disappointment of the fans was indeed their tendency to get upset with just the result of a certain match. This brilliant selector and sounds-like-a-wise-guy told that Bangladesh cricket fans will have to reform their attitude over performances of their team. I mean this is absolutely ridiculous that a national cricket team selector talks like that rather after ridiculous performances of the team which he appears to have co-selected. He could have talked like that if there were plenty of contrasts between the result and the overall game-play of his team.

In matches against India and Ireland, runs scored by the lower order were respectably 50 and 54, that is what ultimately the score got built on was the lower order’s scuffling with their bats. More importantly, the top order in both the matches collapsed before the 9th overs could be bowled. Two middle order batsmen had excellent ties between them that in both matches they made same scores, respectably 8 and 7. The overall middle-order batting scores are already enough to think of a probe, they were 34 and 35 respectably. Because how important a full-fit and performing middle order is in T20s, I hope all the selectors and players will undisputedly admit.

"...the captain who did bat not more than 23 deliveries and scored not more than 25 runs in the entire international T20 competition, has told the team performances was not as poor as words appear to have been spread on it..." © Getty Images

So it’s not that throughout the games Bangladeshi players saturated with good cricket and tragedies suddenly came. Both the games had their 10th overs of the second innings where everyone was able to say Bangladesh’s not going to make it. So what our players and selectors have to be is a little modest while talking to anybody. The one gets upset, gets upset because that ‘one’ indeed does care. Players beef up the spirits with this ‘care’ so the players will have to be modest when they turn the ‘carers’ upset. Asking for reforms in attitudes is not the way.

Same words are for our mighty captain Mohammad Ashraful, who, covered by Armed Police Battalion personnels, yards away of people’s outrage and fed with assurance that there have been arrangements to keep him away of the mob, has proudly pronounced that point of his stepping down from captaincy doesn’t really arise. Mohammad Ashraful, the captain who did bat not more than 23 deliveries and scored not more than 25 runs in the entire international T20 competition, has told the team performances was not as poor as words are spread on it, rather they have plenty of achievements from this competition. Actually he ain’t to be blamed because he didn’t learn to act with modesty; not when it’s a humiliation, and not on earth whiles its celebrations.

It was inside Principal’s room where formalities were being done of my admission to Dhaka Residential Model College. I don’t know about other colleges, but DRMC had rules for its students to choose compulsory and elective subjects during the admission, I mean at the very beginning. When I was about to name my subjects, my mother was looking at me, to read my face what really I was going to do. My sister along with my mother, often wanted me to have Biology at least as a fourth (elective) subject so that I could at least seat for medical admissions after higher secondary. But I had my memories. I saw my sister to study up to a limit that a human being possibly can and I was never comfortable with studying this much.

Not only for admission, after getting admitted in Dhaka Medical College my sister had to put her studies in one side and rest of her world aside. I told I was never comfortable with this much studies. So for only to avoid studying 18 hours a day, I never even thought about being a doctor in anyways. So in an afternoon of 2003’s fall inside Principal’s room in Residential Model College, when I named my subjects ‘Higher Maths’ and ‘Statistics’ instead of ‘Higher Maths’ and ‘Biology’, my mother told nothing. But her face left a message that at that moment she gave up her hope of another of her children could be a doctor, and she didn’t look much happy with that.

Being a doctor in anywhere is always thought to be the fulfilment of dreams of the one who became and the people around him. In all over the world medical schools appear to be pretty different from other schools just because it contains its pupils who beside studies receive lessons to get prepared mentally to serve the people with devotion and adoration. We can look over an array of essays with title “aim in life” where confirmedly majority of the essays will hail the dreams of kids those want to be doctors. When parents look forward to have their child in the journey of being a doctor, their sights remain with immense hope and expectations.

Violence in our educational institutions is not new to claim lives of students. In Bangladesh more students have died from internal campus violence than the savageries of various repression-friendly regimes. The freshest claim of this nasty part of our politics has been Abul Kalam Asad Rajib.

Abul Kalam Asad Rajib was in his room in Dhaka Medical College hostel Fazle-Rabbi Hall on the second floor. A group of above twenty people with sticks, cricket-stamps, rods and other melee weapons broke in Rajib’s room. Reportedly Rajib was beaten by the group inside the room until some of the attackers took him and threw him down from the balcony of 2nd floor. After an above 25 feet free-fall on concrete slab on the ground, he was taken care of by another group waiting downstairs. There again Rajib was beaten mercilessly until a crowd converged to the spot. The attackers left the scene with more than 25 casualties including one seriously injured, Abul Kalam Asad Rajib, who is a leader and General Secretary of Dhaka Medical College unit of Bangladesh Chhatro League, the student wing of the presently ruling party.

Noted number of the injured students at hospital has named a doctor called Bidyut Barua, who is another Chhatro League leader of the campus, an ex general secretary of the unit and appears to have led a faction of DMCH Chhatro League which is rival of the one Abul Kalam Asad Rajib led. Most of the injured students have stated attackers contained a few DMC Chhatro League activists, and a large number of outsiders led by some Chhatro Union (Bangladesh Student Union) activists. Abul Kalam Asad Rajib, who could have served us in health services or in politics or in anywhere in coming years, has succumbed his injuries, has been declared dead by the doctors of Community Military Hospital at Dhaka Cantonment at 6:30PM local time.

One of my recent posts was written about the student politics. A question was thrown through the post that whether a ban is appropriate and my post outlined a trail that ends in answer ‘no to ban and yes to reformation’. Many of the readers have been people close to me and I wasn’t out of touch when they came up with unending criticism of my views. Many of the readers directly said a ‘yes’ to permanent ban over student politics. Very few had a voice over the reformation but what exactly hasn’t been seen in them was optimism. They ain’t sure about a reformation that can make student politics work is in fact possible.

What Bangladesh Chhatro League have been doing after the present government took oath, is not indeed any individual characteristic of Chhatro League as an organization. It has been a custom that student wings of a ruling party will act like what Chhatro League has been doing since last January, what Chhatro Dal has done in January 2002 and what Chhatro League did in May 1996.

My saying ‘no’ to banning student politics, was some sort of saying ‘yes’ to the path of progressive advancement of our national politics. To back this ‘no’ to the ban, there have been a lot of arguments which I had to get involved in with those who support a ban. But today it appears that my being stubborn with a ‘no to ban’ gives me a feeling of standing upon a street perplexedly, the street which is full of blood, bled by those who attacked, bled by those who were attacked.

Abul Kalam Asad will never know that what he succumbed was not his wounds given by his rivals. He has succumbed the wounds that are stigmatizing our politics every day. Abul Kalam Asad will never know that the prominence of notoriety that he had in his campus, didn’t require him to battle for it, he easily grabbed it from the characteristic of our politics. The failure is ours that we have ourselves ruled by politics with such a type, which creates leaders of characteristics who died and the media finds nothing to add at end of their obituaries that could make us say “Ahare…” after reading it.

It appears that the nuclear deal between India and United States has been followed by numerous violent events in adjacent countries of India. Pakistan has seen a fresh phase of anarchies that includes a tremendous escalation of terrorism in both frontier and deep inside the territory. Terrorist organizations those had their actions mostly based in frontier regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan are being seen tending to converge deep inside Pakistani, specially the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP). Series escalation of terrorism those are spreading furiously in urban Pakistan has also become the most concerning to date.

Violence in Pakistan that is only in Pakistan still could be considered as internal matters of a country. But observing commotions in other South Asian countries have urged the observers to note it that this might be something bigger than internal matters of a single state. Series of unexpected incidents in both Bangladesh and Sri Lanka is leading South Asia to be an endangered region. The carnage took place in Bangladesh’s border guard headquarters that left an almost hundred slain military officers, has been a major notification in South Asia that peace is at a vulnerable position. The whole matter around Pilkhana has been immensely fishy where the government of Bangladesh has been found to be more conservative that they should have been. Initially the senior members of the government tried to create a political division over the matter by blaming their political rival for the carnage. An unexpected and fruitless political blame-game was triggered that was leaving a lot of cloud for the investigators. So far the governmental bodies cannot be kept out of suspicion because a many questions still remain unanswered. The federal investigating committee has been largely politicized by putting government ministers and ruling party leaders to lead the committee. Keeping the fact in mind that the perpetrators caused an irreparable damage to the defence apparatus of the country, the perpetrators appear to receive a number of advantages for bewildering decisions of the government. Hence the biggest attack to the date on Bangladeshi defence apparatus has been made.

Events taking place in Bangladesh those chronically have followed the medieval carnage at Pilkhana, could be a part of the efforts where the overall peace of South Asia is being bullied. An army officer was found stabbed to death in a Dhaka hotel in the same week of the carnage. Three other army officers were killed in an event which appears to be a helicopter crash, including a two-star General. Another two-star general and a single-star general were killed in Pilkhana. Series of hits on the people who are deeply associated with the national security structure of Bangladesh are not at all scattered incidents. Initially Bangladesh security analysts told the border guards carnage could be a retaliation of an incident of 2001 where a wave of Indian raiders were valiantly pushed away by Bangladesh border guards, leaving a death toll of 21 Indian soldiers, 3 Bangladeshi soldiers and hundred more casualties.

Another incident in this second Friday of March 2009 has escalated the security tensions of Bangladesh up to a concerning height. A fire outbreak in the biggest shopping mall of Bangladesh, the Bashundhara City can appear as a powerful hit over Bangladesh economy. The economy of Bangladesh already has become a victim of global economical shrinking and massive curtailment at global job market. Still no formula has been found out that the Bashundhara incident indeed has been a hit, but our intelligence apparatus has to work it out. There has to be found that whether this has been part of the effort which is gradually breaching the peace of South Asia, after the powerful alliance of two malicious giants of world diplomacy. We have to learn if this has been a part of the process that has been initiated in order to bring changes in the map of South Asia. If all the mishaps taking place in recent times are all related, these will no more be considered as attacks on certain sectors rather than it will be considered as attack on the sovereignty and independence of Bangladesh.

একজন বাংলাদেশী, যে তার দেশকে ভালোবাসে, যে তার দেশের সেনানীদের বিশ্বের সর্বশ্রেষ্ঠজ্ঞান করে, যে দেশকে আক্রান্ত হতে দেখলে নিজেদের ভেতর মতাদর্শের বিভাজনকে গৌণ মনে করে, দেশের সবাইকে ঐক্যবদ্ধ হতে দেখবার জন্য ছটফট করে, তার মন ভেঙ্গে দেয়ার জন্যে পিলখানার ঘটনাটি যথেষ্ট ছিল। স্বাধীন বাংলাদেশে দেশের সেনাবাহিনীর উপর এত বড় আঘাত আর হয়নি। ঘটনাটি যেদিন ঘটে সেদিন কেউই বুঝে উঠতে পারেননি যে আসলে কি হয়েছে কিংবা এই অবস্থায় কি মনোভাব প্রদর্শন করা প্রয়োজন। যখন পিলখানার ভেতরে ও আশেপাশে পাওয়া যেতে থাকল দেশের গর্বের সন্তানদের ক্ষতবিক্ষত দেহ, তখন আর কারওরই বুঝতে বাকি থাকেনি যে এ কোন বিদ্রোহ, অসন্তোষ ও ক্ষোভের ফল হতে পারেনা। এ দেশের নিরাপত্তা বুহ্যের উপর এক আচমকা ও নৃশংস আঘাত, যা বাংলাদেশের শত্রুরা ঘটিয়েছে। বাংলাদেশের ক্ষতি হলে যাদের লাভ হয়, বাংলাদেশ এগিয়ে গেলে যাদের ক্ষতি হয়, তারাই এই কান্ড ঘটিয়েছে। এই ঘটনার ধারক বাহক যারা, তারা এই দেশের কেউ হতে পারে না, খোঁজ নিলে জানা যাবে কাগজে কলমে তারা হয়তো এদেশেরই মানুষ, কিংবা নয়, কিন্ত তারা বাংলাদেশের ঘৃণ্যতম শত্রু। এখন পর্যন্ত দৃশ্যমান ঘটনাগুলো পিলখানার ভেতর ঘটলেও ধারণা করা কঠিন নয় যে পরিকল্পনা ছিল দেশের আরও ক্ষতি করার। দেশের সেনাবাহিনীতে চূড়ান্ত ক্ষোভের সঞ্চার করে সেখান থেকে প্রতিক্রিয়া আসতে পারে এমনটা আশা করা স্বাভাবিক, এমনটা ঘটতেই পারত। সেক্ষেত্রে দেশকে ইতমধ্যেই যে পরিমাণ দূর্বল করা হয়েছে, দেশ তার থেকে আরও অনেক বেশি দূর্বল হয়ে পড়ত। পরম করুণাময়ের কাছে অশেষ কৃতজ্ঞতা জ্ঞাপন করছি যে তা অবশেষে ঘটেনি। আবেগ ও ক্ষোভের বশে তাৎক্ষণাৎ প্রতিক্রিয়া প্রদর্শনের চেয়ে ধৈর্য্য ও দক্ষতার সাথে পরিস্থিতি সামাল দেয়াকেই আমাদের সশস্ত্র বাহিনী সঠিক মনে করেছে। এতে সেনাবাহিনীর প্রতি দেশের মানুষের শ্রদ্ধা বেড়েছে, সেনাবাহিনীর অধিনায়কদের প্রতি শ্রদ্ধা ও আস্থা বেড়েছে। আমরা আশা করি নিয়মতান্ত্রিক ভাবে ধাপে ধাপে এগিয়ে আমাদের সেনাবাহিনী দেশের উপর এই নৃশংস আক্রমনের নেপথ্য খুঁজে বের করবেন, এই ঘটনার দায়ীদের বিচারের সামনে উপস্থিত করবেন ও দেশের শত্রুদের নিধন করবেন।

আমাদের দেশে রাজনীতির সাথে জড়িত ব্যাক্তিবর্গ দেশের স্বার্থকে পাশ কাটিয়ে যখন একান্তই নিজ রাজনৈতিক উদ্দেশ্যকে সামনে রেখে নানা পদক্ষেপ গ্রহণ করেন, তখন তাকে আমরা বলি রাজনীতির নোংরা খেলা, কিংবা ডার্টি গেম। পিলখানায় সার সার পড়ে থাকা অফিসারদের মৃতদেহ গুলো দেখে মনে ভেঙ্গে গিয়েছিল। কিন্তু তারপরও সংশ্লিষ্ট সবার বিশেষ করে সশস্ত্র বাহিনীর অশ্রুসজল অথচ ধীরস্থির অবস্থান দেখে একটু একটু করে মনোবল ফিরে পাচ্ছিলাম। এই বোধটা জাগ্রত হতে শুরু করেছিল যে ঠিক সময় আমরা ঠিকই একতা ও মনোবল ফিরে পাই। কিন্তু এই প্রক্রিয়ায় বাধ সাধছে দেশের রাজনীতি। আজ সংসদ অধিবেশনে জনপ্রতিনিধিদের বক্তব্যদানের ধরণ দেখে নিরাশ না হয়ে উপায় ছিলনা। আমি পুরো অধিবেশনটির সম্প্রচার দেখিনি। কিন্তু একদেড় ঘন্টা যাই দেখেছি, তাতে পারষ্পরিক দোষারোপ ছাড়া কিছুই ছিলনা। বিশেষ করে এই ক্রন্দনরত হৃদয়ে সবচেয়ে শক্তিশালী আঘাতটা বোধ হয় করলেন আমাদের স্বয়ং প্রধানমন্ত্রী। শুনেছি ওয়াশিংটন পোস্ট, টেলিগ্রাফ, গার্ডিয়ান নাকি গত কয়েকদিনের ঘটনায় মাননীয় প্রধানমন্ত্রীর ভূমিকার ভূয়সী প্রশংসা করেছে। পরম করুণাময়ের কাছে প্রার্থনা করি ঐ পত্রিকার সংবাদদাতারা যেন সংসদে প্রধানমন্ত্রীর আজকের ভাষণটির ব্যাপারে জানতে না পারেন। কারণ আজকের ভাষণ খুবই নগ্ন সাক্ষ্য বহন করে যে আমাদের রাজনীতি তার গতানুগতিক আচরণ থেকে বেরুতে পারে নাই, পারে তো নাইই বরং এই সংকটের সময়ও তার কুৎসিত দিক বেরিয়ে এল। মাননীয় প্রধানমন্ত্রীর বক্তব্য থেকে আমরা জানতে পারলাম বিরোধী দলীয় নেত্রী বেগম খালেদা জিয়া নাকি পরোক্ষ ভাবে ঐ অফিসারদের হত্যাকান্ডে জড়িত ছিলেন। সাংগঠনিক ভাবে বিরোধী দল অর্থাৎ বিএনপি নাকি এই নির্মম হত্যাকান্ডে মদদ জুগিয়েচছে। শুধু তাই নয়, হত্যাকারীদের পালিয়ে যেতে সাহায্য করেছে এই বিএনপিই। গোয়েন্দা মারফত প্রধানমন্ত্রী নিশ্চিত হয়েছেন যে ঘটনার আগের দুরাত বেগম জিয়া তাঁর বাসায় ছিলেননা, এবং আমাদের মাননীন প্রধানমন্ত্রী সন্দেহ প্রকাশ করেছেন যে সেই দুরাত বেগম জিয়া অফিসারদের হত্যা করার ষড়যন্ত্রে ব্যায় করে থাকতে পারেন। প্রধানমন্ত্রী সংসদের কোন প্রমাণ প্রদর্শন না করলেও বলেছেন বিরোধী দলের এগুলো অস্বীকার করার কোন উপায় নাই। এই প্রত্যেকটি কথা প্রধানমন্ত্রী আজ সংসদ অধিবেশন চলাকালীন সময়ে দ্ব্যার্থ কন্ঠে বলে গেলেন।

মাননীয় প্রধানমন্ত্রী শেখ হাসিনা যিনি বাংলাদেশের ইতিহাসে নির্বাচনে সবচেয়ে বড় বিজয় নিয়ে ক্ষমতায় আরোহণ করেছেন, এই পরিস্থিতে সংসদের দাঁড়িয়ে তাঁর এই বক্তব্যদানের কি উদ্দেশ্য থাকতে পারে? উদ্দেশ্য আপাতদৃষ্টিতে একটাই হতে পারে যে এধরণের সরাসরি অভিযোগের একটি কড়া জবাব দেয়ার জন্য বিএনপি ছটফট করতে থাকবে। বিএনপির এর জবাবে হয়তো এরকমই সারশূণ্য একটি বক্তব্য দিবে, কে জানে বিএনপির বক্তব্য এর চেয়েও সারশূণ্য হতে পারে। তার জবাবে রাজনৈতিক প্রতিপক্ষ আওয়ামী লীগ আরেকটি কড়া জবাব দিবে। এই নিয়ে পরষ্পরকে দোষারোপের প্রক্রিয়া চলতে থাকবে। আর এর মাঝে বিভ্রান্ত হবে দেশের সব মানুষ। শুনেছি স্বরাষ্ট্রমন্ত্রীকে প্রধান করে নাকি তদন্ত কমিটি গঠন করা হয়েছে। স্বরাষ্ট্রমন্ত্রী যত বড় রাজনীতিকই হোননা কেন, তিনি দেশের ক্যাবিনেটের মেম্বার। সেই ক্যাবিনেটের নেতা হলেন স্বয়ং প্রধানমন্ত্রী। তদন্তর কোন কুলকিনারা কেউ জেনে উঠবার আগেই প্রধানমন্ত্রীর কাছ থেকে যদি এসব কথা শুনতে হয়, তবে সেই প্রধানমন্ত্রীর অধস্তন স্বরাষ্ট্রমন্ত্রীর নেতৃত্বে সম্পাদিত তদন্তের ফলাফল কি হবে, তা কি আমরা আগে থেকে ধারণা করতে পারিনা?

দেশের উপর এত বড় একটা আঘাত এল। তাতেও যদি আমরা শিক্ষিত না হই, তাতেও যদি আমরা গতানুগতিকের একটুও বাইরে কিছু করতে বা ভাবতে না পারি, তবে কি সামনে এগুনো সম্ভব? ২০০৭ সালের শুরু থেকে যখন ঢালাও ভাবে দেশের রাজনীতিকদের উপর আক্রমণ আসছিল, তখন রাজনীতির পক্ষে কথা বলে বলে আমরা মুখের ফেনা তুলেছি। তখন রাজনীতিকে কেউ গালমন্দ করলে সেই গালমন্দ নিজের গায়ে নিয়েছি এবং তার উপযুক্ত জবাব দিতে চেয়েছি। দুবছর পর আজ দেশের উপর এত বড় আঘাত হানা হল। এই সংকটের মুহুর্তে যদি দেখি ঐক্যের পথে, এগুনোর পথে বাধা হয়ে দাড়াচ্ছে সেই রাজনীতি, তবে এর উপর মানুষের শ্রদ্ধা থাকা কি সম্ভব? এর উপর মানুষ কেন আস্থা রাখবে? যখন কেউ বলেছে রাজনীতিবিদরাই দেশের এই হাল করেছেন, তখন তার জবাব দিয়েছি এই বলে যে দেশের প্রতিটি মানুষই রাজনীতিবিদ, রাজনীতিকে গালি দিলে নিজেকেও গালি দেয়া হয়। তো আমরা এ কোন রাজনীতির পক্ষে কথা বলেছিলাম? এতকিছুর পরও মানসিকতার বদল হয় না কেন? দায়িত্মবান পদের থেকে দায়িত্মহীন বক্তব্য দানের অবসান কবে হবে?

It was a party at Bury Saint Edmunds (Suffolk, England) attended by some Bangladeshi professionals with their families. Though it was only a week passed after the election, politics was not popular among the words circulated. But at one moment someone raised the point of student politics and almost certainly most of the guests consented that there should be a ban over the student politics in Bangladesh.

Like these Bangladeshi professionals living abroad and having conscious eyes over the politics back in homeland, most of the educated people of Bangladesh are seen to be very keen about a ban on the national student politics.

Ban over the student politics will be a solution like ejecting eyes in order to cure an optical disease.

This sort of procedure I believe the previous regime felt most comfortable to apply; something like suspending democracy as politics have gone wrong, jailing politicians arbitrarily as some of them have gone violent, in order to save the nation you know. But a cordial ‘thank you’ to the almighty and may be to the previous regime kingpins that they haven’t thought of anything like banning student politics by state legislation or something. But the sense, or the thought which have helped them best to create their initial moral ground, I feel is most enthusiastic to look forward for a law that’ll ban student politics. The issue which I have discussed here, is, the craze of power of our politicians, completely imprudent ‘getting to power’ policies of the parties and exploitation of the situation of some apolitical individuals (from inside or abroad), gave birth of the 1/11 government. And the role of the politicians here has been most vital, which have gradually convinced Bangladeshi people that peace and progressiveness are to appear as elusive in Bangladeshi politics. From this of the attitudes of seeing the politics as a nun looks at a whore, many of our educated countrymen think that banning student politics must be a prerequisite of peace.

The history of Bangladesh shows us patterns of politics to evolve where many of the most loved politicians have had their ‘entity of politician’ to be born in universities and colleges, places those are considered as conscience of the whole nation. No other part of the society thinks and acts in the way that the students of a country do. There are many problems identified and many questions asked only by the student society of a nation. Today in Bangladesh we can talk about sidelining the culture of student politics, because we have become so reticent to recall our past and history where we have many of our political crisis pursued, dealt and replied progressively by the society of students. It’s the society of students which is able to react and to send tremendously effective shockwaves to all and all sectors of the system immediately after discovering stressful glimpse of commons. Now some apolitical individuals, whose courage of ignoring the national interest is the result of our indefinite reticence and our imprudent politics, took over the government ousting democracy which got prominence in name of 1/11. The birth of the 1/11 government has already been a political disaster for Bangladesh. Closing down the door of politics for students will be a closure for many youths with devotion, patriotism and brilliance. It will appear as nothing but self-contradiction if we look for better politicians by banning student politics; will appear as invitation for 1/11 kind of disaster to once again suspend democracy.

However there is no argument over the fact that events often take place in Bangladesh for people to get sore on student politics. The present government which is outcome of however an election have taken office accompanied by hope and expectations of better politics and better practice of democracy. Keeping the debate aside whether any physical cause of such hope ever existed, expectations have been deeply buried by activities of respective wings of ruling party. Behavior of the government, the Election Commission as well as the ruling party at Upazila polls have been in such way that the unpleasant fact is about to come out; there was nothing in the idea and deeds of the 1/11 regime that could buy us a culture of better democratic practices. In fact it can be stated about the 1/11 regime that a government which itself appears amid an evil expulsion of democracy can never be a subject to deliver better practices of democracy. The takeover of the newly elected government has been visibly followed by incidents of political violence and culture of muscling which most unfortunately had major roles for student wing of the ruling party.

I consider the newly elected and formed government to not be fully prepared to take and work on the control they have got. The house is still to get its pace and the cabinet too does not look or seem structurally compact. There was a major task to work on at the very initial stage that is the Upazila polls where the present government has seen overwhelming failure and hopefully they will admit it. Considering failures as part of everything and considering statements of Tanjim Ahmed Sohel as attempt to cover-up as a governmental spokesperson often does, the complete stability in the national politics is yet to come; eventually still the focus is not over the issue of student politics. But the issue is too important and requires effective attention of our statespersons.

A group of people who like us to call them as the “progressive civil society” or “shushil shomaj” and who outlines longer and scholarly foreseeing plans for better Bangladesh judging things only those they see in or around Dhaka, has very different views about the student politics. Some of them have missed some appointments or seminars because some Dhaka University or Titumir College students have gone rowdy and created a mess on the streets. So they want student politics banned forever. This is just an example and I am not going to generalize the whole thing just based on it. The point which plays here is, the only proposition that “shushil shomaj” could deliver about student politics is campuses should be kept clear of politics. In this kind of demand, there is disrespect for politics; disrespect for our history thereby there remains disrespect for us. We can easily imagine what the scenario could be if student politics is banned indiscreetly in all campuses. A generation of students will be under construction which will concern nothing other than their self interests, which will have a dilapidated view on politics of Bangladesh and will contain no respect for our statespersons. Keeping the debate of respect worthiness of our politicians aside, the closure of student politics will trigger an unhealthy process of depoliticizing of our youths. The process will give birth of a large apolitical population who will just learn to take part in criticism rather than delivering constructive ideas. There will be a lot of people which we already have a handful of, to put more than perfect slangs behind failures and misappropriation by people in politics. But there will be none to have enthusiasm to get into what they call “dirty” and to cleanse it. We already have plenty of critics. But we need people to get to work more than we need people to do criticism. And for meeting such need or at least to help such people come forward, there should be a very effective reformation over our national student politics.

Bangladesh has seen number of political crisis and there were politicians and experts with brilliance to help us overcome the deadlocks. Student politics should be taken as a concern by them and should be pushed through reformations. As an overview of Bangladeshi student politics does not tell us it is in good shape, strategists of all political parties are to be unleashed to explore rooms to reform it. The major challenge for such reformations will be campus violence those often erupts based on illegitimate interests inside campuses those shouldn’t concern the students ethically. There take place hasty and violent political moves by student wings those come up as annoyance for general students. Reformers of student politics will get in touch with many of these problems those obstruct it to move onwards progressively. There will be seen problems and these will have to be resolved. But no room should be given to the proposition that a ban will work over the student politics. We have a certain sector of politics having troubles. Now if banning that certain sector is one of options rather than thinking about fixing it up, then there is no point of having politicians to deal with tricky situations, in fact there remains no point in our expectation of better democratic practices to move onward progressively in politics.

So “no” to ban, “yes” to reorganization and reformation.

* * * * *

This post has also been published here in Weekly Economic Times.

Zahirul Haque Biplob “Bipu”, a simple youngster from Tikatuli, Dhaka, who went to Korea for better living in 1997, has been an immensely positive and honorable introduction of Bangladesh to the Koreans. Watch the video and get the story.

Bipu in Bangladeshi media was introduced by BTV’s popular show Ittadi. So sincere thanks and cheers go to Hanif Sanket too for his extraordinary virtue of promoting off-beat and untold geniuses.

This post has also been published in Weekly Economic Times

In all of the political discussions, the question that inevitably is asked to the political analysts of strategists is, what improvements in politics have been done as result of what happened in 11 January, 2007. None of the people who ask this question try to realize that there has been done nothing to make our politicians feel that they need to be more serious and more ardent to commit better things to the people. Everyone feels comfortable to misunderstand the 1/11 event something like the whole classroom has been kept under detention as many of the students became rowdy. The 1/11 was nothing like that and whoever came forward to punish the classroom did not have prosperous agendas to commit so. Thus it will be our own faults if we think the politics of Bangladesh have received enough lessons to deliver all the divines henceforth.

It is quite amazing to hear we are having the population more than the superpower Russian Federation does have. It’s amazing to be the 7th on the list whereas Russia is 9th, UK is 22nd and Canada, France, Italy, Germany all are below our rank. And beside the amazement it is out utmost failure of noticing and our imprudence that this population has made ourselves a bowl which never fills. It is the increasing population of Bangladesh which has presented us the fate where may be we won’t see the day when our empty bowls of demands will be pouring. A tremendously tight count of resources with a population increasing without any controlled and positively expected rate, are on the way to take us to a valley where all of the formulas of prosperity will se failures to bail us out of the disaster. The disaster is up ahead. And the disaster is simple to explain. It’s just a situation where we got an immense count of population but not even a fraction of necessary resources and nobody delivering words to provide us with them. It’s so simple like a family having all ways of incomes crucially closed, a family with numbers of members to feed, a family with no friends or relatives ready to borrow or charity or something, a family having no definite way other than to be on streets begging to be fed.

I remember that the population was a prime issue of social and technical studies when we were at school. For a country like Bangladesh, population has always been the prime concern. As far as we are not to maintain the luxury of beating superpowers like Russia, United Kingdom or France having the population of 159 millions of people, we are also not to afford to overlook this vital concern of ours which can turn all of our earnings in coming days into useless. We don’t have a definite food plan to deal with what the population will be ten or twenty years later. We don’t have a definite power plan to provide with electricity and fuel to what the population will be ten or twenty years later. And all these things which we are ought to do in coming days will have to be done by who we will be voting for a week later. But did you see manifestos of them? Did you find what are they thinking about the increasing population in any of their manifestos? One of the party heads has dedicated the manifesto to all those will cast vote for the first time. But there is no definite declaration of what to be done to ensure their effort to keep on their lineages hundreds of years later. On of the party heads has promised to his constituency voters that rice and lentils as regular meals will be made free for all. A proverb goes in North-eastern Europe, the only way to get cheese and to not pay is raiding rat holes; rat holes are only place from where free foods used to come. So there is commitment of delivering foods from rat holes but there is no commitment on how to deal with some more millions of people who will be added in coming years.

The absence of population issue in the political manifestos has been noticed crudely. Some of the political analysts and strategists have mentioned the manifestos as advertisement leaflets of the parties to have the people casting their votes for the particular parties. As the population issue is quite old to do marketing jobs with, most of the manifestos have dropped it out. This is disappointing. There is no permanent result at the end of a shortcut. Every developments, every prosperities, every agenda have to be implemented in an ongoing process with immense patience. And politicians of a country are to be set on those ongoing processes. And their so vicious overlook of a so important issue like the increasing population will urge the people of Bangladesh to reconsider their choice of handing over the ruling-sceptre of the nation.

It’s not necessary to have the political history of hundreds of years to contain political events of multiple dimensions. Bangladesh in her history of not a lot more than 37 years has seen quite a lot of kinds of elections; elections under military rule, elections under democratic governments, election under constitutionally explicable caretaker governments etc. But this time Bangladesh is going to experience such a situation were we are to vote under authority of such a government, which is neither a direct military rule, nor a constitutional caretaker government.

This has completely been a newer way of rupture to the constitution, made of some party-loving people like to do reunion kind of thing at Tommy Mia’s Gulshan kitchen or something. The situation is virtually different from what it has been seen before. The present authority which has an outspoken renown as the “1/11 government”, is going to handover the power to another government, which they say to be elected by public polls. Or by the other kind of saying, or it makes sense if we say what really will be going on in fact, the handover will be done to a group of people who are not really disappointed with the rupture of the constitution. In fact we have these interested groups who have expressed their will to “ratify” all the constitution-breaches. And things obviously look like the stage and all other surroundings have been set to have that group of illicitly interested people winning the upcoming election.

I was really stunned to hear Munni Saha of ATN Bangla saying Akbar Hussain was called “Ekbar Hussain (এক বার হোসেন)” in Comilla because he used to go to Comilla not very often. Many politicians in many of the localities are called in different sorts of names and some of them are pretty abusive. But this does not mean a nation-wide television channel will have their reporters hailing those names. Sedgefield (Durham, UK) politician Jonathan Cockburn in 2005 has several times given names to Tony Blair and other Labour Party seniors. Cockburn had pretty large number of supporters at Sedgefield. But we definitely would have to think about the neutrality and sense of decency of Sky News if one of their reporters would call Blair a wacko while reviewing pre-election air in Durham; so we’ve done and all of Bangladeshi should do, everybody awaited for a fair election should take the concern of whether ATN Bangla with their fellow comrades in the front line are neutral or just working with the target of bailing a party as winner out of the election, a party which has leaders of it expressing their impudence for getting to the power, saying “we will ratify everything every violators in this government did with anybody”.

Many of Awami League leaders have been tremendously upset about having their rivals and Jamaat-e-Islami running together. Well, actually they don’t think about there can be someone looking back to their track they have left behind. The photo given here is for the evaluation of those who have shown their immense patience by reading this of my posts down to this bottom of it.

What place the almighty will grant us to keep our faces so that nobody other than a Bangladeshi can see those. There were a lot of allegations. There were a lot of rumors of thousands of millions of dollars smuggled here and there. There were a lot of rumors of earning millions of taka out of electric posts made of local wood god knows how those could leave opportunities of earning this much amount. These were pushed to courts and judges at gunpoint or out of gunpoint nobody found any of them evident yet. Nobody in Bangladesh, or out of Bangladesh never saw materials or evidences of these allegations directly or indirectly or anyways. None of anything was seen by people. But what finally came to everybody’s eyes are tormented face of him, his broken vertebral column and different part of the body covered with clean bandages. The following short movie has been re-posted from blog of Jingo. The movie is named We Won’t Forgo The Inhuman Torture on Tareq Rahman, made by something called Jingo Interactives.

নিরপেক্ষতা নিয়ে সন্দেহ আছে এমন একটি সরকারের অধীনে নির্বাচনের আগে রাজনীতির প্রতিটি গতিবিধির নানাবিধ অর্থ খোঁজা হয়। রাজনীতির সাথে জড়িত ব্যাক্তিবর্গ, সরকারের সাথে জড়িত ব্যাক্তিবর্গ, সবার প্রতিটি বক্তব্যকে, তাদের প্রতিটি আচরণকে অত্যন্ত সূক্ষ্ম ভাবে পর্যবেক্ষণ করা হয়। এমনই এক পরিস্থিতি বর্তমানে বাংলাদেশে বিরাজ করছে। এক্ষেত্রে বিগত বাইশ মাস সময়কালে সরকারের নানান অপকর্ম, অপচেষ্টা এবং কুমতির কারণে পরিস্থিতি বেশ জটিল হয়ে আছে। নির্বাচনের আর মাত্র কয়েক সপ্তাহ বাকি থাকলেও এই মুহূর্তে দেশের রাজনৈতিক অবস্থা নিঃসন্দেহে একটি স্টেলমেটের রূপ নিয়ে আছে। দেশের বৃহত্তম দুটি রাজনৈতিক দলের একটি নির্বাচনের ব্যপারে সীমাহীন সিদ্ধান্তহীনতায় ভুগছে, এবং অপরটি সরকারের চেয়েও উচ্চস্বরে বাকি দলগুলোকে নির্বাচনের অংশ নেয়ার আহবান জানাচ্ছে। আমাদের অতীত স্মৃতি বলে এ এক অতি অশুভ লক্ষণ। বাংলাদেশ এরকম একটি পরিস্থিতি দিয়ে এই প্রথম পার করছেনা। দেশের হবে হবে বলে বহু নির্বাচন হয়নি, আবার এমন বহু নির্বাচন অনুষ্ঠিত হয়েছে, যার পূর্বে বর্তমানের অনুরূপ এক অবস্থা বিরাজ করছিল। নিকট অতীতে ২০০৭ সালের ২২শে জানুয়ারির নির্বাচনের কথা আলোচনায় আনা যায়। বাংলাদেশ আওয়ামী লীগের সম্পূর্ণ দোদূল্যমান অবস্থা, কার্যত নির্বাচনে না যাওয়ার সিদ্ধান্ত প্রদান এবং উলটো দিকে বিএনপির নির্বাচন হবেই বলে ক্রমাগত হুংকার প্রদান নির্বাচনপূর্ব রাজনৈতিক পরিস্থিতিকে সারা দেশ এবং সারা বিশ্বের কাছে প্রশ্নবিদ্ধ করেছিল। আপাতদৃষ্টিতে দেখা যায় সেই দুঃসহ স্টেলমেটের মধ্যেই অন্তর্নিহিত ছিল ওয়ান ইলেভেনের পটভূমিকা। ঐ বছরের ৭ই জানুয়ারি তারিখে একটি মামলায় এরশাদের অভিযুক্ত হওয়ার ঘটনার পর আওয়ামী লীগ আসন্ন নির্বাচনের বিরুদ্ধে নিজেদের শক্ত অবস্থানের কথা তুলে ধরে, এবং স্বাভাবিক ভাবেই ২২শে জানুয়ারিতে কোন নির্বাচন অনুষ্ঠিত হলে তার কার্যকারিতা হত খুবই ক্ষণস্থায়ী। কিন্তু তা হবার আগেই কিছু পরদেশী ক্রীড়নকদের দৌরাত্ম্যে দেশের রাজনৈতিক পরিস্থিতির মোড় ঘুরিয়ে দেয়া হয়। কিভাবে তা করা হয়েছে আজ আমরা সবাই অল্প বেশি জানি। ওয়ান ইলেভেন নামক গণতন্ত্র-বিতাড়নের সেই উদ্যোগের পরের ঘটনাবলী অনেক কালিমা যুক্ত এবং দেশের স্বার্থবিরোধী সব কান্ড কারখানার এক ভুতুড়ে ক্রনিক্‌ল। এই মুহুর্তে সেসবকে আমরা মূল বিষয়বস্তু না করি। নির্বাচনপূর্ব পরিস্থিতির উপর আলোকপাত করার উদ্দেশ্য নিয়ে আমরা ২০০৭ সালের প্রারম্ভভাগ এবং ২০০৮ সালের শেষভাগের তুলনা যদি করি, তবে এ দু সময়ের মাঝে বেশ কিছু মিল দৃশ্যতই রয়েছে। সেগুলো চিহ্নিত করার জন্য খুব সূক্ষ্ম দৃষ্টি থাকবার প্রয়োজন পড়েনা। দুটি দলের একটির নির্বাচনের সাফাই গেয়ে আস্ফালন, অপরটির একান্ত দোদূল্যমান অবস্থা এবং নির্বাচনের ব্যাপারে প্রত্যক্ষ বা পরোক্ষ অসম্মতি, নির্বাচন কমিশানের নির্লজ্জ পক্ষপাত, দেশের বিচার বিভাগকে রাজনৈতিক কাজে ব্যবহার এবং সরকারের আনুষ্ঠানিক বা অফিসিয়াল প্রধানের প্রায় নিষ্ক্রিয়তা, প্রায় ক্ষমতাহীনতা ও প্রায় নৈর্জীব্য, এ বিষয়গুলো উল্লিখিত দুই সময়ই পরিলক্ষিত হয়েছে। তবে বলার অপেক্ষা রাখেনা বর্তমানের পরস্থিতি আরও অনেক অনেক বেশি জটিল। বর্তমানের অপ্রিয় সত্যগুলোও আগের চেয়ে অনেক বেশি নগ্ন বিজ্ঞজনেরা বলে থাকেন এই সরকারের উদ্দেশ্য বা অ্যাজেন্ডা পূর্বের সরকারগুলোর চাইতে অনেক বেশি গুরুতর ও ম্যালেফ্যাক্টরি।

উপদেষ্টাদের মুখে “এই রোদ এই বৃষ্টি” আরও নতুন কিছু প্রশ্নের জন্ম দেয় এবং কিছু নতুন কৌতুহল প্রকাশের প্রয়াস জাগায়। প্রবাদবাক্যে রোদের মাঝে বৃষ্টিকে শিয়ালের বিয়ের মত একটি শুভ ঘটনার সাথে সংযুক্ত করা হয়েছে। কিন্তু যে উপদেষ্টা সবসময় সহাস্যে নিজে থেকেই বিবৃতি দেন লিখিত বক্তব্যের সাহায্য না নিয়ে, তিনি হঠাৎ গতকাল মুখ কালো করে একটি লিখিত বক্তব্য পাঠ করলেন; তার মুখের সহাস্য অবস্থার মাঝে হঠাৎ মেঘ কোন শুভ অবস্থার কথা জানান দেয় না বরং বাংলাদেশের রাজনীতিতে বর্তমানে ঘটতে থাকা প্রচন্ড অশুভ এবং ভুতুড়ে অবস্থার কথা জানান দেয়। খন্দকার দেলোয়ার হোসেন উপদেষ্টার ঐ বিবৃতি দানের ঠিক পরই একটি মন্তব্য করেছেন যে উপদেষ্টার এসকল কথাবার্তা এবং কথা বলার ধরণ সম্পূর্ণ রূপে বিভ্রান্তিমূলক। তিনি হয়তো একটি রাজনৈতিক দলের পক্ষ থেকে এরূপ মন্তব্য করেছেন, কিন্তু হোসেন জিল্লুর রহমানের এরূপ বিবৃতি নির্বাচনের জন্যে অধীর আগ্রহের সাথে অপেক্ষমান প্রতিটি মানুষের জন্য বিভ্রান্তিকর। একটি অংশগ্রহণমূলক সুষ্ঠু ও স্বচ্ছ নির্বাচনকে সামনে রেখে সরকারের একজন ঊর্দ্ধতন মুখপাত্রের এরূপ বক্তব্য এই আশংকাকে প্রতিনিয়ত উষ্কে দেয় যে প্রকৃতপক্ষেই দেশ একটি সুষ্ঠু নির্বাচনের দিকে এগোচ্ছে না।

নির্বাচন পূর্ব রাজনৈতিক আলামতগুলোকে যাচাই করলে দেশে চলমান একটি পরিস্থিতির কথা জানা যায়, যেখান নূন্যতম বোধশক্তির অধিকারী একজন মানুষও উপলব্ধি করবেন, একটি রাজনৈতিক দল নির্বাচন পূর্ব সবধরণের সুবিধাজনক অবস্থা ভোগ করার সুযোগ পাচ্ছে। এই দলটির প্রধান নেত্রী দীর্ঘকাল যাবত স্বাধীন ও মুক্তভাবে চলাফেরার সুযোগ লাভ করেছেন এবং চিকিৎসার উদ্দেশ্যে বিদেশে অবস্থান করে সব রকমের সামাজিকতা বজায় রাখার জন্য প্রয়োজনীয় তওফিক সৃষ্টিকর্তার কাছ থেকে লাভ করেছেন। আমরা তাঁর সুস্বাস্থ্য কামনা করি। দেশের অতি বৃহত্তর রাজনৈতিক দলের এই প্রধান নেত্রী উচ্চতর ও গুরুতর চিকিৎসা লাভের ফাঁকে ফাঁকে যখন নানান সামাজিক ও রাজনৈতিক সমাবেশে যোগদান করেছেন তখন দেশের অপর অতি বৃহত্তর দলটির প্রধান নেত্রী নিজের অসুস্থ দুই ছেলের কথা ভেবে নির্ঘুম রাত কাটাচ্ছিলেন। তৎকালীন বন্দী এই নেত্রীর সাথে তার দল ও জোটের দুই নেতা কারাগারে বৈঠক করার ঘটনায় যখন দেশের বহু সচেতন মানুষ চমকে আর দমকে মুর্ছা যাচ্ছিলেন, তখন তারা একথা মনে রাখেননি যে সেই নেত্রীর কারাগারের কয়েক কিলোমিটার দূরে অবস্থিত নির্বাচন কমিশানের সহায়তয়ায় তার দলে কিছু বিপথগামী নেতা তার দলটিকে ছিনতাই প্রায় করেই ফেলেছিলেন। কিন্তু এটি ছিল তার দলের পরম সৌভাগ্য এবং দলের অপর কিছু নেতাদের সীমাহীন দূরদর্শীতা যাদের কারণে ছিনতাই পর্ব সম্পন্ন হয় নাই। কিন্তু এই ছিনতাই পর্ব সফল করতে সরকারের এমন কোন বিভাগ নেই যাকে ব্যাবহার করা হয়নি। নির্বাচন কমিশন, স্বরাষ্ট্র মন্ত্রণালয়, নিম্ন আদালত, অ্যাপিলেট বিভাগ, প্রত্যেকটি ব্যুরোক্র্যাটিক এবং জুডিশিয়াল অস্ত্র ব্যাবহৃত হয়েছে। ২০০৭ সালের ২৯শে অক্টোবার তারিখ গভীর রাত্রীতে গুলশানের জালালাবাদ হাউজে আমরা কিছু অপরিচিত ও অনাকাংখিত ব্যাক্তির উপস্থিতির কথা জানতে পাই, অর্থাৎ সেই বিশেষ অস্ত্রটিও এক্ষেত্রে ব্যবহারের হাত থেকে মুক্তি পায়নি। একটি রাজনৈতিক দল যখন এত ঝড় ঝঞ্ঝার মাঝে দিনযাপন করছে, তখন অপর সেই দলটি তুলনামূলক ভাবে হাওয়াই দ্বীপে রৌদ্রস্নানে ব্যাস্ত। পূর্বের সেসব আশ্চর্য ঘটনাবলী প্রত্যেকটিকে প্রয়োজন মত স্মরণে আনলে দেখা যায় ২০০৭ সালের ১১ই জানুয়ারির পর বিএনপি একটি রাজনৈতিক দল হিসেবে কার্যকারিতা লাভ করেছে এই বছরের ১১ই সেপ্টেম্বার বেগম খালেদা জিয়া মুক্তি পাবার পর। মাঝের বিশ মাস সময়ে একটি মুহুর্তের জন্যও দলটি কোন রাজনৈতিক কর্মাকান্ড সম্পাদন করতে পারেনি। গত বছরের ৯ই নভেম্বার যখন ঘরোয়া রাজনীতির উপর থেকে নিষেধাজ্ঞা তুলে নেয়া হয়, তখন বঙ্গবন্ধু এভিনিয়্যু আওয়ামী লীগ কর্মীদের স্বতঃস্ফুর্ত উপস্থিতিতে মুখরিত হয়ে উঠলেও ২৮/১ নয়া পল্টন রয়ে যায় রায়ট পুলিশের ঘেরাওয়ের ভেতর, বিএনপি অফিস ছিল তালাবদ্ধ। পরে ১৩ই ডিসেম্বার যখন সেই তালা খোলা হয়, তখন দলের প্রধান কার্যালয়ের দপ্তর সম্পাদক রিজভী আহমেদ সেখানে হয়ে পড়েন অবাঞ্ছিত, বিএনপি হেড অফিস দখল করে নেই দলের বিভাজনবাদীরা। মাত্র ছ’দিন আগে জিয়ার মাজার প্রাঙ্গনে দলের এক কর্মীর কাছে পাদুকাপ্রহৃত হওয়ার পরও সেই বিভাজনবাদী বিপথগামীরা দলটির উপর আঘাত হানা বন্ধ করার কথা ভাবেনি। অপরদিকে অন্যদলটি থেকে যায় এ জাতীয় সকল বাহ্যিক আঘাতে ঊর্দ্ধে। তার মানে এই নয় যে সেই দলটির উপর আঘাত আসা উচিত ছিল। কারও উপরই আঘাত আসা উচিত ছিলনা। কিন্তু বিএনপির উপর এসেছে, উচিত না হওয়া সত্ত্বেও। বিগত বিশ মাস সময়ের মাঝে আওয়ামী লীগের রাজনৈতিক তৎপরতার সাথে বিএনপির তৎপরতার কোন তুলনাই চলেনা। বর্তমানে আওয়ামী লীগের তৃণমূল থেকে প্রার্থী বাছাইয়ের পরিকল্পনাটি একটি ভালো উদ্যোগ, যদিও চট্টগ্রামে সেই উদ্যোগ নিয়ে কিছু প্রশ্ন দেখা দিয়েছে, তাও সর্বোপরি এটি একটি ভালো উদ্যোগ। আর এই উদ্যোগটি তাদের পক্ষে নেয়া সম্ভব হয়েছে শুধুমাত্র এই কারণে যে গত বিশ মাস তাদের দল কোন বাহ্যিক আঘাতে ছিন্ন বিচ্ছিন্ন হয়নি। কিন্তু বিএনপির পক্ষে চাইলেই এরূপ একটি উদ্যোগ নেয়া এই মুহুর্তে সম্পূর্ণ অসম্ভব কেননা এই দলটি গত বিশ মাস কার্যত নিষ্ক্রিয় পড়ে ছিল। এবছরের মার্চ থেকে দলের ভেতর সংস্কারবাদ নামক জীবাণূটির দৌরাত্ম্য সম্পূর্ণভাবে ব্যর্থ অনুভূত হলেও, অপর অর্থাৎ কার্যকর এবং সর্বজন সমর্থিত অংশটির কার্যক্রম নির্বাচনে অংশ নেয়ার মত কোন সাংগঠনিক উদ্যোগে যেতে পারেনি, কেননা দলে চেয়ারপার্সনের ও চেয়ারপার্সনের কার্যকারিতার অনুপস্থিতি, এবং সার্বিক ভাবে বিশ্বাসঘাতকদের দৌরাত্ম্যে এক ধরণের দোটানা দেখা দিয়েছিল। এক্ষেত্রে তর্কের খাতিরে দল হিসেবে বিএনপি ও আওয়ামী লীগের আভ্যন্তরীণ গণতন্ত্রের তুলনাটিকে আনা যায়, এবং এর জবাব অবশ্যই রয়েছে। যেভাবে এই দলটির উপর সরকারী অন্যায় ও অবিচার করা হয়েছে, তাতে দলটির ভেতর গণতন্ত্র আছে কি নেই, তা দলটিকে ভাঙ্গার চেষ্টা করার সময় মনে করা হয়নি। এই মুহুর্তে দলের সিনিয়ার নেতারা নানান সমাবেশে ব্যক্ত করে থাকেন তারা নির্বাচনের জন্যও তৈরি এবং আন্দোলনের জন্যই তৈরি। আমি মনে করি এই বক্তব্য বাস্তবসম্মত নয়। বিএনপি ১৮ই ডিসেম্বারের নির্বাচনের জন্য তৈরি নয়। হয়তোবা বিএনপির শরিকরা তৈরি থাকতে পারেন, তবে দল হিসেবে বিএনপির নির্বাচন প্রস্তুতি মোটেই বলার মত কিছু নয়। আর এটিই যে তাদের নির্বাচনে যাবার ব্যাপারে সিদ্ধান্তহীনতায় ভোগার একমাত্র কারণ তা নয়। অপরদিকে আওয়মী লীগের সরকারী দলের মত আচরণ সকলের জন্যই উদ্বেগজনক। একটি রাজনৈতিক দল দীর্ঘকাল ক্ষমতায় না থেকেও আসন্ন একটি নির্বাচনে অংশ নেয়ার জন্য বাকি দলগুলোকে আহবান জানাচ্ছে, এ বোধ হয় কয়েকশত বছরের গণতান্ত্রিক রাজনীতির ইতিহাসে নজিরবিহীন। নজির থাকুক বা নাই থাকুক, এই ঘটনা দেশের কোন মানুষের জন্য ভালো লক্ষণ নয়। এটি এমন একটি পরিস্থিতি যার উদ্ভব না ঘটিয়েছে বিএনপি না ঘটিয়েছে আওয়ামী লীগ। বর্তমান এই স্টেলমেটের জন্মদাতা বর্তমান সরকার স্বয়ং এবং এ থেকে মুক্তির পথ না পেয়ে দেশ যে আজ এক ভঙ্গুর অর্থনীতিকে সঙ্গী করে অন্ধকারে হাবুডুবু খাচ্ছে, তার দায়িত্ম আর কারও নয় এই সরকারের। অনেকে বলেন আমরা আবার দুই বছর আগের সেই ডেড্‌লকে ফিরে গেছি। বিজ্ঞজনেরা বলেন পরিস্থিতি হয়তোবা দুই বছর আগের ডেড্‌লকের অনুরূপ, কিন্তু আমরা পিছিয়েছি আরো অনেক বেশি। এ এক যথার্থ সত্যি কথা।

বর্তমান রাজনৈতিক পরিস্থিতিকে বিবেচনায় এনে নিজেদের অবস্থা নিরুপণ করার পথে বিএনপির কোন বাধা নেই। আর এই মুহুর্তে সেই কাজটি করা ছাড়া বিএনপির সামনে এগুবার আর কোন পথও নেই। একটি প্রতিকূল অবস্থায় নির্বাচন করার জন্য জোট বা দলের অবস্থান কতটা ঠিকঠাক আছে, তার অনুসন্ধান দলকে করতে হবে নিজেদের মাধ্যমেই, নিজেদের এবং দেশের কোটি কোটি মানুষের কথা ভেবে। নির্বাচন কমিশনকে তারা যে সাতটি দফা দিয়েছে, পরিস্থিতি সেই সাতটি দফা পূনর্বিবেচনার দাবি রাখে। সেই সাতটি দফার মাঝে রয়েছে কয়েকটি অতি গুরুতর এবং ভাইটাল ইস্যু, এবং বাকি কয়েকটি দফা রয়েছে যেগুলোকে দর কষাকষির উপকরণ হিসেবে চিহ্নিত করতে এই পরিস্থিতিতে কুন্ঠাবোধ করার কিছু নেই। জরুরী আদেশ প্রত্যাহার সহ গণপ্রতিনিধিত্ব আইনের স্বৈরাচারী সংশোধনের বিরুদ্ধে নিজেদের অবস্থান অন্যান্য সব সময়ের চেয়ে শক্ততর করে তুলে ধরার চূড়ান্ত সময়ে এখনই। নির্বাচন কমিশনের নিরপেক্ষতাকেও শক্ত প্রশ্নের সম্মুখীন হতে হবে। যেখানে প্রতিটি রাজনৈতিক দলেরই এই দাবিগুলো ব্যাপারে সোচ্চার হওয়া উচিত ছিল, সেখানে একটি দলের গতিবিধি যেকোন দেশের কোন সরকারী অর্থাৎ ক্ষমতাসীন দলের কথা মনে করিয়ে দিচ্ছে। এই পরিস্থিতিতে বিএনপি সহ চারদলীয় জোটের কাছে এই মৌলিক দাবিগুলো অত্যন্ত কঠোর ভাবে তুলে ধরা ছাড়া আর কোন বিকল্প পথ নেই। এসকল দাবির দৃঢ়তার বিপরীতে বর্তমান অগণতান্ত্রিক সরকার কি প্রতিক্রিয়া দেখায়, তা থেকেই দেশের মানুষের উপলব্ধি আসবে যে আসন্ন নির্বাচন সুষ্ঠু ভাবে সম্পন্ন হবার সম্ভাবনা যে কতটা ক্ষীন। এসকল বক্তব্য সুপ্রচারিত ভাবে এবং শক্ত ভাবে তুলে ধরার পর অন্যান্য দলের গতিবিধিতে যে পরিবর্তন ও দুশ্চিন্তা স্থান নিবে, তা থেকেই দেশের মানুষ স্পষ্ট ধারণা লাভ করতে পারবে যে কোন দলটি গণতন্ত্রে বিশ্বাসী আর কোনটি দীর্ঘদিনের ক্ষমতাহীনতা ঘোচাতে যেনতেন প্রকারে ক্ষমতায় যেতে আগ্রহী।

Quotes:

“আজ হোসেন জিল্লুর রহমান এই যে সাংবাদিকদের প্রশ্ন করতে দিলেন না, আমি বলব এই আচরণের মাঝে অগণতান্ত্রিকতা আছে, স্বৈরাচারিতা আছে। এবং বক্তব্য বিষয়ের উপর আর কোন প্রশ্ন আশার পথকে রুদ্ধ করার এই প্রচেষ্টা দ্বারা বোঝা যায়, বক্তব্যদাতা নিতান্তই ক্ষমতাহীন, দূর্বল এবং আংশিক বা সম্পূর্ণ রূপেই অজ্ঞ, আমি অন্তত তাই মনে করি।”

[“The press briefing where Hossain Zillur Rahman didn’t allow the press to ask any questions, I must say, there is a sign of autocratic tendency in this kind of behaviour. And in this ill will of barring the press to quiz, this indicates that the spokesperson definitely is a powerless, partly or completely unaware of facts and they are just errand people, at least I think it to be so.”]

“আমি এমনিতে ঠাট্টা করেই বলতে চাই, আগামী সরকার, মানে এই সরকারের পরের সরকারের অর্থমন্ত্রী যিনি হবেন, তিনি যে অর্থমন্ত্রী হয়েছেন, এটা তার নিজের পাপের ফল, তার বাপের পাপের ফল, তার দাদারও পাপের ফল, সর্বোপরি এটা তার চোদ্দ গুষ্টির পাপের ফল যে তাকে ঐ পরিস্থিতিতে একজন অর্থমন্ত্রী হতে হয়েছে।”

[“Satirically, the person who will become the Minister of Finance of the next cabinet, his being the minister will be the punishment of his own sins, his father’s sins and his grandfather’s sins. Ultimately it will be a punishment of the sins of his whole fourteen generations that he has to be the Minister of Finance at predecessor cabinet of the present one.”]

“নির্বাচন কমিশনার সাহেবরা সাংবাদিকদের বলেছেন যেন কেন্দ্রীয়ভাবে ফলপ্রকাশের আগে মিডিয়া কোন ফল প্রকাশ না করে। তারা আরও আইন করে রেখেছেন যে যেকোন মুহুর্তে যেকোন কারণে তারা যেকোন প্রার্থীর প্রার্থীতা বাতিল করতে পারেন। তার উপর দেশে চলছে জরুরী অবস্থা। এতে তো স্পষ্টই বোঝা যাচ্ছে বর্তমান সরকার এই অনুগত এবং চাকুরিজীবি মনোভাবাপন্ন নির্বাচন কমিশনারদের সহায়তায় নির্বাচনের ফলাফল পরিবর্তনের মানসিক প্রস্তুতি নিয়ে রেখেছেন”

[“Election commissioners want the media not to publish the election results until it ain’t published by the EC itself. They have also made some rules that they, at any condition, for any reason and at any moment, can cancel the candidacy of any candidates anywhere they want. On the other hand there remains a state of emergency. This is crystal clear that the present government, with a loyal EC is in the way of manufacturing the election results in the way it wants”]

“গত কয়েকদিন যাবত আওয়ামীলীগের নেতাদের নানান বক্তব্য শুনে আমার মনে হয়েছে, এ বুঝি কোন সরকারী দলের নেতারা কথা বলছেন। সরকারের মতই উৎসাহের সাথে তারা সবাইকে নির্বাচনে যাবার আহবান জানাচ্ছেন এবং সরকারের মতই জোর দিয়ে ১৮ই ডিসেম্বারে নির্বাচন হবে বলে হুংকার দিয়ে যাচ্ছেন।”

[“Statements of Awami League leaders for last couple of days is sounding like a ruling party is saying those words. They are making calls to other political parties as the regime is doing, they are expressing their stubborn resolution that the election will take place and must take place on December 18, just as the regime is doing”]

“কিছু উপদেষ্টারা কথায় কথায় বলে থাকেন, রাজনীতির গুণগত উত্তরণের জন্য রাজনীতিবিদদের আরও দায়িত্মবান হওয়া প্রয়োজন। কিন্তু তারা মূল সত্যটিই উপলব্ধি করতে পারছেননা যে রাজনীতির গুণগত উত্তরণের জন্য সবার আগে বর্তমান সরকারের বিদায় প্রয়োজন।”

[“Some advisers cite this constantly that politicians should act more responsibly to bail out from the present political stalemate. But they are not realizing the most unbreakable truth that their departure is the breakthrough to bail out of the stalemate”]

“সরকার যেমন নিজেদের অবস্থান স্পষ্ট করছে না, তেমনি বিএনপির অবস্থানের ভেতরেও অস্পষ্টতা আছে। দফার সংখ্যা বৃদ্ধি করার চেয়ে সাত দফার মাঝে তাদের মূল দাবিগুলো সরকারের কাছে পরিষ্কার করে উপস্থাপন করা উচিত এবং নিজেদের অবস্থান আরও স্পষ্ট, দৃঢ় এবং শক্তিশালী ভাবে তুলে ধরা উচিত, যেন তাতে কোন অস্পষ্টতা খুঁজে পাওয়া না যায়।”

[“Like the regime, BNP too is not making its position clear before everybody. Among their seven points, they should underline the basic points like lift of emergency, autocratic amendment of RPO etc. They should state their demands more adamantly, more confidently so that nobody finds any obscurity in there.”]

“যে সরকার নিজে দূর্নীতির বিরুদ্ধে লড়াইর কথা বলে, অনিয়মের বিরুদ্ধে অবস্থানের কথা বলে, তাদের নিজেদের অবস্থা এতো ঠুনকো কেন সে বিষয়ে দেশের মানুষ স্পষ্টত বিভ্রান্ত। নতুন গণপ্রতিনিধিত্ব আইনের মাধ্যমে সরকারের সাত উপদেষ্টার নিয়োগলাভ অবৈধ হয়ে পড়েছে। দূর্নীতিবিরোধী, অনিয়মবিরোধী সুন্দর সুন্দর কথা বলে এই সরকারের ক্যাবিনেটের সত্তর ভাগই যদি আবৈধ হয়, তাহলে আমরা কোথায় যাবো? দেশের সংবিধানের এত অবহেলা কেন?”

[“The regime which earned its primitive moral ground by citing their battle against corruption and misappropriation, has amended the RPOs in such a way where their own cabinet now has 7 out of 10 appointments turned to completely illegal. Seven of the ten advisers have now no lawfulness to remain in the post. Why the constitution is so brutally ignored?”]

“নির্বাচন কোন মহাসড়কে তো নেইই, কোন মাঝারি আকারের সড়কেও নেই, এবং এই নির্বাচনে যে শেষমেষ কোন কানাগলিতে গিয়ে পৌছোয়, সে-ই এখন দেখবার বিষয়।”

[“Election is never in a highway; rather it’s not even on an ordinary downtown street. It’s heading towards a dead end."]

“দেশের মানুষের বোঝা উচিত, দেশের রাজনীতিবিদদের উপলব্ধি আসা উচিত, যে আঠারোই ডিসেম্বার আর যাই হোক, একটি সুষ্ঠু এবং পার্টিসিপেটরি নির্বাচনে অনুষ্ঠান কোন ক্রমেই এবং কোন ক্রমেই সম্ভব নয়।”

[“The people of Bangladesh should come by the realization and our politicians to realize this unbreakable fact that no free, fair and participatory election is possible to carry out on December 18, 2008, no way”]

A school boy, lives with his parents, his kid sister and his dreams. He adores is father the most, cannot think himself without his loving mother and sister. However his mid school life sees disturbances, enraged teacher of him asks his father to see the Principal. His father is insulted, returns home with the copy of an undertaken and breaks on his son outrageously. This takes the boy to deeper of his troubles. He mixes up with street level politics and gets himself even in a bigger trouble. He gets caught by Police from a political gathering turned to violent street agitation. He is arrested, he is jailed. His parents see the hardest of troubles ruffled their lives as well as their son’s. They find their lives being through without their sons. They miss him badly.

Months later the boy gets acquitted and returns home. He receives the grandest of welcomes from his sister, from his grand mother, from his parents and aunts. He comes back to his life, he comes back to their lives with tears.

* * * * *

Memories of October 28, 2006 is still fresh among us. We are not to forget the brutal death of 6 members of Bangladesh Chhatro Shibir and 1 member of Bangladesh Awami Jubo League in Dhaka. Except one, ages of all of them were ranging between 16 to 21. All of them were lynched to death on hands of their rivals.

Bangladeshi people want to get rid of this bloody political violence which has been her culture since her birth. Bangladeshi people want their politicians and statesmen to be far more responsible to avoid the loss of our lives and our properties.

The present undemocratic, unelected and constitutionally proscribed government has virtualized a barometer that they use as a probability scale for the upcoming general election in December. They say this scale to be strictly showing that there will be a free and fair election in December this year. Every time an issue stands up that causes confusion over the election, they are to become stronger in their voices that “there is no confusion over election, politicians shouldn’t spread confusions”. Yesterday New Age editor Nurul Kabir has added some satire over the reality, that even the advisers, the fellow cabinet members when they are reached by him in some social gatherings, express their own confusions over the election when their conversation turns to a little more personal to nearer ones.

[Nurul Kabir told in Channel One’s Nirbachito Khobor:
বর্তমান সরকারের যারা উপদেষ্টা রয়েছেন, এখানে সেখানে তাদের সাথে যখন আমাদের কথা হয়, কানে কানে জিজ্ঞেস করলে তারাই তো বলেন, কি জানি ভাই ইলেকশান হবে কি না জানিনা]

Highest ranked people of the government among those who can be reached by the press but do not enjoy the power of the policy-maker, actually have no reasons to be believed as the reflectors of the real scene that his going on inside the present regime.

The truth is getting brighter as the election is closing in, that is they are only the civilian cream of a military backed government, is the velvet covers of an unwanted iron hand, should be designated as nothing more than errand men. As far as they are not allowed at the policy-making end of this regime, it’s expected that many of their speeches will have contradiction to the reality, as they themselves are not told the full story. So, it won’t be our bad if we underline the Appellate Division’s rejection of Hasina’s bail appeal two days after the unofficial spokesperson of this undemocratic regime Hossain Zillur Rahman told that there remains no legal blockade that could bar Sheikh Hasina and Begum Zia from the general election. People, who immensely look for a free fair election but never have come to believe this regime’s fable of a free and fair election in December this year, may remain impassive after the Appellate Division has made Hossain Zillur looking like a fool. But people, who have been nourishing their utmost optimism over a free and fair election by the end of this year, now should rethink a few things those they should have been taking under consideration from long before.

What can be a more unpalatable misfortune than a nation having this much uncertainty over an election that is very much up ahead? How somebody can have the right to blame others, who themselves tomorrow states the election will surely take place and the other day say there remains uncertainty? Don’t we find a free and fair election was never certain if we look back?

There are a lot of reasons to not get convinced that a free and fair election will take place by the end of this year. There have been many times where this regime has gone through the other way than what they told. There have been many times the words given by this regime has been proved to be fake and for sake of buying time by convincing the people. I have previously written these same very sentences many times in many posts. I like to show some reasons behind this of my opinions. Readers are requested to keep patience while going through my reasons given here.

• Naked partialities in arbitrary arrests of politicians. Arbitrary arrests of politicians and shameless partiality to protect leaders those had belief on this regime more than a priest has on Christ. Do you think Sadek Hossain Khoka, Mannan Bhuiyan, Tofael Ahmed all are saints thrown from the heaven?

• Patronage for establishing traitors’ factions in both the parties. The line between traitors and loyalists in BNP is now too clear because the October 29 hijack attempt was too noisy. On the other hand the attempt over Awami League has been a semi-success completely under disguise and still in action. Do you think Tofael-Amu-Suranjit-Razzaq quadro even does care about what Zillur Rahman thinks and wants? Don’t you know Sheikh Hasina had wanted names of those went to Heathrow to receive Amu? Don’t you know Sheikh Hasina sat him at the waiting room for hours and finally hasn’t seen him?

• Double role about dynastical appointments. One of the major issues of this regime’s overthrowing the democracy was, removing political dynasties and family favouritism. BNP’s reformist Enam A. Chowdhury, kingpins of Oriental Bank scandal Selim A. Chowdhury and Masud A. Chowdhury, Foreign Adviser Iftekhar A. Chowdhury all are brothers having same parents. D. Fakhruddin Ahmed is their sisters’ husband while Hassan Mashhud Chowdhury is a cousin. Nazim Qamran Chowdhury, the husband of ex-adviser Geeti Ara Safia Chowdhury, who is charged in a graft charge, is another cousin who has never been sued. All these men and women from a single Sylheti Chowdhury family, can you show me a more depraved example than this ever took place in Bangladesh? Note it, the Oriental Bank misappropriation was done when D. Fakhruddin was the Governor of Bangladesh Bank.

• Spiteful biasing of the anti-graft drive. The ACC anti-graft drive, more than a jihad to abolish corruption, has been a tool of political repression and keeping some officials under the thumb. GATCO graft case, which pulled almost all of the senior BNP 2001 cabinet members to the court, had two important names as suspects of grafts. They are D. Sadat Hussain and Maniklal Samaddar. These two have been cleared by the ACC investigation. D. Sadat, the overnight shushil, is now the Public Service Commission chairman and Manik Lal Samaddar has been named as the special assistant to Fakhruddin, equivalent to a minister. Anti-graft mujahidin, eh?

• Minus Two Formula. There is no reason to forget the hide & seek game with Sheikh Hasina and unofficial house arrest of Khaleda Zia. There is no reason to forget the Home Ministry resolution that described how a threat Sheikh Hasina is to the national security and tranquility. Continuous attempts to send Begum Zia abroad for physical treatment and her constant denial are also not to be forgone.

• Severe mistreatment and brutalities with politicians. No other government after the end of cold war has been this brutal to politicians like the present undemocratic and unelected 1/11 government has been. The death of BNP leader Qaiyum Khan, who being a heart patient was not visited by a doctor for single time in his eleven month detention, was also kept unreachable to his family. He was allegedly tortured to death. We also have noted the vicious mistreatment and brutality with Chittagong’s popular mayor Mahiuddin Ahmed, who was barred from a court-ordered release, ultimately couldn’t get to his dying teenage daughter who died after her long fight with cancer. Who will answer the tears of Mahiuddin which he couldn’t resist while seated at Shah Amanat Airport departure lounge?  Brutal torture on Tareq Rahman, who is still uncertain about recovering ever in his life, has been left with two of the vertebral bones shattered due to estimated fall from a respectable altitude. Which of the mentioned brutalities above was has been felt necessary for a fair election? A government that has no respect for politicians, can they be relied for a free and fair election?

• Election Commission’s complete loss of reliability. Can’t we remember how impudently the Chief Election Commission backed the unscrupulous treachery inside a political party? The CEC on September 1, 2007 told,

“জনাব মান্নান ভূঁইয়ার বহিস্কারাদেশটা অবৈধ ছিল, এটা শুধু আমিই মনে করি না, কমিশনের সবাই মনে করেন। এসব বিবেচনা করেই হাফিজুদ্দিন আহমেদকে চিঠি পাঠানো হয়েছে। আরে বিএনপির তো সংবিধানই ঠিক নাই। যাইহোক, এসব রাজনীতির কথা, এখানে এগুলো বলে লাভ নাই। কেচো খুড়তে সাপ বেরিয়ে আসবে।“

Is this a statement from a man who is supposed to be neutral? A strong reason of unreliability lies in that statement from the Chief Election Commissioner. Now it’s your decision that whether he and his team are credible for a free and fair election.

• Obscure treatment with Sheikh Hasina. If I am not wrong Sheikh Hasina was supposed to return home a week after the Eid-ul-Fitr. Now, there are happening a lot of talks invisibly so that all the realities cannot be explicable clearly. But having only some weeks before the election, Sheikh Hasina is still being obscurely barred to return home. Her party leaders ain’t seen sound to have her back to action. These are not at least signs of sincerity for a free fair election. This is also a reference to the second point.

• Indefinite enforcement of emergency rules and denial to withdraw. Whereas the whole nation wants withdrawal of emergency rules, whereas both of the major parties wants the withdrawal without a delay, whereas one of the initial moral backers of this regime, the European Union wants the lift of these rules, the government is suspiciously and illegitimately wary to lift this tool of repression. A regime, who doesn’t feel comfortable to rule without having rights of people and freedom of all barred by the emergency rules, is difficult to rely for prosperous moves.

• Repression and biasing over media. We shouldn’t be forgetting the events of August 17-21, 2007. We shouldn’t be forgetting the repression of the media, when no TV channels were allowed to broadcast their scheduled news shows. There was a mail to BDNews24 admin which asked him to not dare to be on air until further notification. We have also noted the fax from a special agency after Begum Zia’s release which mentioned phony information of Tareq’s leaving for abroad. Closure of CSB News in name of anti-graft drive and putting control over late night Ekushey Television political show are also to be remembered. Dirty role of Prothom Alo and Daily Star all over the 1/11 tenure and ACC’s complete overlooking the graft charges of Transcom boss Latifur Rahman is another addition. A government having true and honest sincerity towards an election; Are they usual to have necessity of such acts?

• Impudent partiality. Playing blind about Ali Hasan Mujahid has been too noisy. Complete surrender to Islamic organizations has been too naked. Ali Hasan Mujahid’s meeting with Chief Adviser under an issued arrest warrant has abolished the total neutrality of the present government. It’s not like they have been neutral in all other cases than Mujahid’s one, but their sacred treatment of Ali Hasan Mujahid has been a shameless showdown and it came clear that, they are not to be relied as neutral.

After having all these points in knowledge, can we be so bum to count days for a free and fair election? Under this government?

It’s been exact three years of my nearly witnessing a severe road accident. It was the October 26 night of 2005 on our way to Cambridge from Stratford, East London; a dark blue Lotus M1oo overtook our National Express bus. The vehicle was dangerously quick and the driver looked too good with his wheels as it had the tremendous speed although there was quite a rush at the highway. But I said it was mere dangerous. Hardly some minutes passed after I, for the last saw the rear lights of Lotus M100, as our bus went ahead a little far and the worst was found. The blue Lotus M100 crashed at the place where the right-handed lane of the highway was divided to two routes, one to Cambridge and straight I didn’t know. The crash initially looked pretty bad. We could see the rear part of the car was a little lifted up to few inches from the asphalt. Rear glasses were transparent so the suddenly appeared bluish airbags were visible. Our driver was grudgingly passing by the scene too slowly for a highway as well as all the vehicles on our line were doing so. The crash site which was never more than two to three minutes old when we first had that at our sight and the surprise for all South Asians of the bus including myself from Bangladesh was the surroundings of the crash, cordoned by police personnels, the whole highway was turned to nearly illuminated with blue and red lights of ambulances and patrol cars. We passed by and the bus got back its usual highway speed. After some while the driver of our bus god knows from where learnt so, did let us know that two passengers, both male, survived the severe crash and have been rushed to hospital. The accident chapter at my thought was soon shut as we were in a hurry to Cambridge. It was my mother’s birthday and we were carrying a chocolate cake bought from a Sainsbury’s shop at Stratford. The cake was about to lose its speciality if we couldn’t make it before 11:59PM, before her birthday’s getting a day older. But it was beyond everything that I was really amazed with a so rapid response of police and medical agencies to rush to the crash site and rescuing the victims.

Bangladesh Highway Police was first introduced in 2004. We have never got in touch with any statistics that how the situation of Bangladesh road traffic accidents (RTA) have gone better after the formation of a whole new unit devoted to serve the highway matters. We are also not familiar with the reality that whether there has been any improvement or it has gone worse. Heavy rain, foggy weather in the winter, extra rush due to two Eid vacations are special cases when we are never to miss the news headlines of deadly automobile accidents at our highways, specially two notorious ones, the Jamuna Bridge link road at Elenga, Tangail and the whole of the Dhaka-Chittagong highway. Bangladesh is one of the most usual to face this problem increasingly and we can blame and we can throw the responsibilities of these mishaps arbitrarily to the police forces for their poor management of putting some control on highway drivers and off course the post-accident handling. But those who have got in touch with some severe highway accidents anyways, will be found a little exceptional about this blaming part, must protest it and must state it that the Bangladesh Police are the first and fastest governmental agency to respond any deadly or any highway automobile accidents. Their transportation, their manpower and their effort is almost one of the unique one that accident victims get for being helped.

The thing needed is the proper coordination of all government abilities behind helping the issue of these highway accidents and massive loss of lives. Medic teams after each five miles won’t serve the purpose if the drivers on the highway are presented with a relaxed enforcement of traffic rules. We hailed the services of police at the aftermath of a highway automobile accident, but their role before the occurrence must be strengthened. In most of the cases of highway accidents in Bangladesh, the spot is almost never found without fatalities. Especially reckless driving in special occasions mentioned earlier, end up with a larger number of fatalities and in most of the cases with dead and badly disfigured drivers themselves. Little strict coordination of related institutions of the government can deal with these mishaps. It’s about saving lives of people, on their way to home or work or elsewhere.

Emergency may be relaxed early Nov: Adviser
Tue, Oct 21st, 2008 6:19 pm BdST

Dhaka, Oct 21 (bdnews24.com)—The caretaker government may relax the state of emergency next month, to coincide with the arrival of a European Commission delegation, said an adviser Tuesday.

“The chief adviser has assured that the state of emergency will be relaxed to hold a free, fair and credible election,” foreign adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury told reporters following a meeting with the EC mission head in Bangladesh at the foreign ministry.

A 10-member core assessment team of the EC will arrive on Nov 6 to study the pre-election political situation.

“The government may well make the announcement on relaxing the emergency during their stay,” Iftekhar said.

Said EC mission head Stefan Frowein after the meeting: “I have talked to the adviser on the polls observation mission. The information continues to be that there will be relaxation or lifting (of the state of emergency) as soon as possible and we will see some announcements from the government very soon.”

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May be we have discovered some superstitious potential in this present undemocratic-unelected 1/11 regime, that though they have suspended the democracy of a democratic state; though students and teachers have been beaten mercilessly, followed by their rage; though they are the crude stipulator of enforcing the state of emergency for an indefinite duration; though they are uncomfortable to proceed without such bold legal enforcement that reproaches the rights and freedom of people; though they have tried to legally establish factions of political parties who claimed their genuineness with forgery and surreal ambition; we are looking forward that this government is to present us an election after which all odds of the present political instability will be squared out.

Actually we should not go too far from some truths; those have come to our experiences in last twenty two and half months. Still this government is completely unwilling to lift the state of emergency. They have called for all parties to compete in election. Now all of the parties those have been founded before 1/11 coup d’état, have strongly stated that they are not going to take part in any election on earth, if the state of emergency is not lifted. Especially if we count the timeline of early October this year, all parties have come to an undeclared unity that no election under emergency. The European Union, which is allegedly one of the Western instigators of the 1/11 coup d’état, have made it very clear no election under emergency will get have accountability to them. After all of these ‘to the point’ declarations of abandoning an election under emergency at a row, Hossain Zillur Rahman the unofficial spokesperson of this military backed undemocratic government, have said that they will relax the state of emergency. So it’s definitely your decision, do we still have any reason to convince ourselves that this government is keen to carry out a free and fair election? Do we still have any reason to alight from the belief that the result of the election has been fixed?

Previously I have written several posts (this, this, this etc.) where facts were compiled and conclusively it was clear that there were no reasons to get sure about a free and fair election is going to be held by the end of this year. And we are so unfortunate that still we are to finish posts with the sentences those we used during the crude exposure period of this regime’s political ill-motives.

There are many points still glistening, those urge us that the present government is not interested to carry out an election that will free and fair. And the people of Bangladesh and her politicians have to realize this more than UNDP, EU and those meddling high-commissioners.

Chakravarty joins election debate

Sat, Oct 18th, 2008 9:56 pm BdST
Chittagong, Oct 18 (bdnews24.com) – Indian High Commissioner Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty was the latest foreign diplomat to add his voice to the election debate on Saturday, saying he did not see any problem with holding the December parliamentary polls under emergency.

“If city corporation and municipality polls can be held in a free and fair manner under emergency, national elections can be held too,” Chakravarty told reporters after inaugurating an art exhibition of Bangladeshi and Indian artists at the high commission’s Chittagong office.

At what we’ll have ourselves wondering? At the meddling of these dirty errand boys/girls? Or we should be wondering for the spinelessness of our authorities of tolerate these dirty errand boys/girls? Why to get only the authorities? Can’t we ask our politicians that why don’t they have the voice to protest the meddling these cunts? Whereas the whole of the nation is ready to protest an election under state of emergency, where did a foreign servant like Pinak Ranjan get the courage to take side absolutely against the people? He should be asked when in your country five people were killed political violence on the very day of state election, where the hell were you and indeed who the hell are you to get concern about how election will take place? All of us should be asking the question. I have been doing my part.

In the middle of outnumbered political reforms propositions, the issue which should be considered as one of the vitals, the issue of student politics, is not getting the status of ‘outspoken’ yet. There are many questions and confusion created around this issue. And the most disappointing proposal over student politics issue have come from a community or cult in Bangladesh, recognized as ‘Shushil Shomaj’. There have been several chats in the civil society meetings or seminars, where speakers proposed to ban the student politics in Bangladesh. Banning the student politics!!! More than ousting democracy, more than jailing party leaders, more than aiding 29th October type coup d’états, the most suicidal move for the politics, political future and the overall system of Bangladesh, will be the this if anybody even thinks about banning, barring, ending the student politics.

Ban over the student politics will be a solution like ejecting eyes in order to cure an optical disease.

This sort of procedure I believe the present regime feels most comfortable to apply; something like, suspending democracy as politics have gone wrong, jailing politicians arbitrarily as some of them have gone violent, in order to save the nation you know. But a cordial ‘thank you’ to the almighty and may be to the present regime kingpins, that they haven’t thought of anything like banning student politics by law yet. But the sense, or the thought which have helped them best to create their initial moral ground, I feel is most keen to look forward for a law that’ll ban student politics. The issue which I have discussed here, is, the craze of power of our politicians, completely imprudent ‘getting to power’ policies of the parties and exploitation of the situation of some apolitical individuals (from inside or abroad), have given birth of the present government. And, the role of the politicians here have been most vital, which has encouraged Bangladeshi people to call the politics in ‘dirty’ and staying out of it, rather than getting into it and cleansing it. And from this of the attitudes of seeing the politics as a nun looks at a whore, many of our educated countrymen think that banning student politics must be a prerequisite of peace.

But banning student politics will be a prelude of many of our political disasters. The present government has not yet acted to ban the student politics, but they thing they feel very glad to ask is, people should bring honest and patriot politicians from the society. This is definitely a complete depthless opinion, only expected from people less interested to take up responsibilities.

The history of Bangladesh shows us patterns of politics to evolve where many of the most loved politicians have had their ‘entity of politician’ to be born in universities and colleges, places those are considered to be the conscience of the whole nation. No other part of the society thinks and acts in the way that the students of a country do. There are many problems identified and many questions asked only by the student society of a nation. Today in Bangladesh we can talk about sidelining the culture of student politics, because we have become so reticent to recall our past and history where we have many of our political crisis pursued, dealt and replied progressively by the society of students. It’s the society of students which is able to react and to send tremendously effective pulses to all and all sectors of the system immediately after discovering stressful glimpse of commons. Now, some apolitical individuals whose courage of ignoring the national interest is the result of our indefinite reticence and our imprudent politics, are to attempt to bar this society from getting concerned about our national affairs.

Is it thought for a single time that how a student society we will be building by banning it from politics? At our universities and colleges, a student society will be under construction where students will be taught to build themselves as self-centred, short-sighted and immensely preoccupied with own interests with a complete unawareness of his way to play the role for the nation, for the country. Now we, the people are to consider that whether this will get us to better things or not.

It’s an open secret that what nowadays student leader have been doing. It’s completely known to all that being a student leader nowadays is almost the way to get the opportunity to exploit their entity of a to be politician, as well as most of the student leaders are somehow shacked up with their lobbying efforts, grabbing illegitimate financial gains being in as medium between their fellow party leaders and others. In bigger institutions, residential seats are another issue of trade and showing down the influence. Now I can go down to the bottom of this blog page if I start a sincere presentation of negative things about our student politics. There are a lot of things to get soar about student politics, and there are a lot of reasons for the guardians to stay cautious about their children, to be least interested to see them to go to student politics.

But banning the student politics is not a solution to these after all. It’s not acceptable that at one side we will be shouting, “There should be no goons in politics”, and on the other hand it will be ourselves shouting, “Students politics should be banned”. If the student politics is banned, there will be definitely a political vacuum, which will excite our so called ‘goons’ to come forward and fill that up. And such a proposition of an attitude completely apolitical or politically imprudent, is clearly self-contradictory. If somebody is so concerned about the present condition of student politics, he or she must ask for a massive reform of the whole student politics, but the banning of it is no solution, rather clearly suicidal for a country like Bangladesh.

What can be a more spiteful decision to delude the activists and supporters? At the surprise of all of us, Bangladesh Awami League, one of the two biggest political parties of Bangladesh, has consented to contest the upcoming election amid the state of emergency. After a meeting where almost all the standing committee members sat together at the residence of acting President Zillur Rahman, the acting General Secretary of the party Syed Ashraful Islam said, there are few terms of the state of emergency which are logically enforceable to ensure the security of the voters and a tranquil polling atmosphere. This ridiculous statement from the party spokesman definitely has given birth of a lot of delusions among the party activists and supporters. According to New Age editor Nurul Kabir,

BNP or Awami League, any of them or both of them, if comes to agreement of having the national poll under the state of emergency, this will be a clear indication that none of them are believers of freedom of people and human rights, rather what their philosophy is just being imprudently desperate for the power, at any cost and at any situation, throwing away the national interest and the sake of human rights.

Nurul Kabir added,

The people of Bangladesh must keep it in their consciousness that, whoever comes to agreement to have the polls amid emergency rules, have never ever thought about bailing them out of the present political deadlock, rather has done such a thing for their greed of power, which they feel right to achieve anyways.

We heard the Chief Adviser to say that the state of emergency will be lifted if necessary. But weeks later it has come clear that the present undemocratic and unelected 1/11 regime has no will to see Bangladeshi people with all of their freedom and rights to be in the polling centers. People must ask the politicians that what conditions they’ve been pushed through which earned Hossain Zillur Rahman the courage of hailing the state of emergency with the lamest excuse of ‘public security’. Who on this earth have ever heard of enforcing the state of emergency only for preserving the purity of polls and security of voters?

Look at the incidents carefully. At the afternoon, four advisers Hossain Zillur Rahman, Gen. Golam Quader, Anwarul Iqbal and Bar. Hassan Arif sat together at the office of Gen. Golam Quader. After this Hossain Zillur briefed the press that the regime is adamant about holding the polls amid the state of emergency. Hours later Awami League leaders arranged an executive meeting at the dining table of Zillur Rahman’s residence, where Tofayel Ahmed was seen so excited that many thought he discovered errors at all the Isaac Newton formulas. But after that meeting the spokesman Syed Ashraful briefed the press where he said that some terms of the state of emergency should be considerably enforced to ensure the security of voters. Tofayel Ahmed neither made it prove Isaac Newton wrong, nor broke the lame excuses of the regime, rather encouraged a version of his party which almost chorused the government. All of these followers of ‘Cult Emergency’ have come out hailing the ‘election amid state of emergency’ in this single very day.

Now let be a little bit hypothetical. What’s gonna happen next? This is great opportunity for the government to throw a party that they made it to have one of the big two’s under agreement for a viciously undemocratic behavior. Now with the help of propaganda tools such as Prothom Alo and Daily Star, it will be made obvious that there is no alternative of state of emergency for a free and fair election. At this situation, if BNP or other parties take side against the election under state of emergency, this will turn them to be ‘less sincere for election’, there will be long reports in newspapers that how BNP is not going to let the next election be credible. Then this will be a pressure for all the parties not agreeing with election amid state of emergency, they will be left with no options to maintain the faith of people of being a party towards election, without consenting the election amid emergency rules. And at that moment, the most undemocratic and unlawful concept like ‘an election amid state of emergency’ will be the weapon of biasing the political situation of Bangladesh.

Today Nurul Kabir stated that BNP should have emphasised the ‘state of emergency’ issue stronger than that of RPO amendment. It’s not only a suggestion rather I consider this to be an alarm or warning for both BNP and Awami League, that they are not expected to come at agreement of let the election be held amid state of emergency. Today the version of Awami League is the one I don’t consider to be final because I believe the situation to be changed after Sheikh Hasina will join the scene. State of emergency is the situation which never ever reflects the characteristics of human rights, freedom of expression, freedom of people and rights of all. And no political party will be considered to have honesty and sincerity if they even think about come to agreement of being in election amid state of emergency. This is definitely considered by both Begum Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina. The 2001 election has been one of the most credible elections on Bangladesh’s soil that was only guarded by Bangladesh Army; there was no state of emergency and no nothing. The military has already been credited for a credible election, their presence has guarded the election from most of the expected anarchies, then why they need the backup of a so bold legal enforcement like state of emergency? Why they can’t guard another one without the help of state of emergency?

It can be taken as an assertion of the regime to clarify ACC is not just a tool of political suppression. The international recognition of the military backed regime’s current stance was influenced by the high court granted bails of politicians at a row. Many people inside or outside the government, political or apolitical, have been found to get aggrieved by having the politicians back to the show. So, the High Court’s denial of Sheikh Hasina’s bail appeal at Noor Ali’s extortion charge and ACC’s charging Begum Zia to the Barapukuria Coal Mine charge, can be taken as a showdown of, that the media attracting anti-graft drive has not gone that alcoholic, as of Addition Attorney General Mansoor Habib told, the denial of Sheikh Hasina’s bail appeal has been a regain of the public image of the Appellate Division.

But we must not kick the reality away.

We are now in the timeline, cleanly eighty days away of the national poll. People of Bangladesh, though most of them are not too much optimistic, are looking forward for nothing but a free fair general election. They don’t care whether a High Court or Supreme Court judge gives a judgement freely or having the pen held apart by somebody else. Presently the most important concern of everybody is a free and fair poll. And it ain’t necessary to mention that two events been held today, High Court’s denial of Sheikh Hasina’s bail appeal at Noor Ali’s extortion charge and ACC’s charging Begum Zia to the Barapukuria Coal Mine probe, can be anything but not to be taken as a move by the regime with deliberation of holding a free and fair poll.

BBC interviews Barrister Rafiqul Haque and Additional Attorney General Mansoor Habib

It will be an addition to this regime’s long ‘fun list’ if they defend these two incident as the outcome of freedom of judiciary. Sheikh Hasina’s release at parole, meeting with four advisors at Sudha Sadan, flying abroad to children, all in some 20 hours, has let people know how free the judiciary is. But that supersonic speed of the regime was not questioned due to people took it as a step ahead to an election. Where the judiciary is in no way free rather is under full control of the authority, Sheikh Hasina’s not getting bail today is definitely a move which wants her to get free not in a short time. She is scheduled to return home on October 17. My personal speculation is Sheikh Hasina will get the bail by then, if nothing unexpected is happened. And this lead us to see the sudden blustering of ACC is nothing but to show up their prolificacy, a response to the claim of ACC’s going off the effects.

But all of the lines above can have ascription to the reality if we let that the election is going to be held. It’s still a ‘national confusion’ that how long Bangladesh is going to take to see an immediate election on her soil. A lot of conspiracy theories are being stated, some explicating there’ll be an election in December 18, most of the theories bring references from the history that all the military backed regimes have been found least keen to have an election held. For some major differences between the present military backed regime and previous martial regimes, references from Bangladesh’s experiences are less prioritized. But if we look abroad, the most common chronicle of a military (directly or not) takeover of the government-

•   Ousting the democratic system with excuse of massive street violence with an immediate promise of nearest possible polls,
•   Summoning the loyalist media to convince people about corruption of politicians, then arresting them,
•   Setting apolitical civil society members to give the regime a look of ‘not a complete military setup’.
•   Massive deployment of military officials to the civil system.
•   Expected decline of economy due to lack of keen investors to invest in a ‘yet to have democracy’ state.
•   After a certain amount of time, surrendering to the politics.
•   And tremendously sluggish and stumbling restoration of democracy (confusions or failures over election) with millions of questions to answer and sometimes with a flow of blood in parallel.

The embarrassing fact is, the list of events above has taken place in Bangladesh exactly as same, the list which ends with the possibility of extremely torpid restoration of democracy, sometimes with a line of blood flowing in parallel. That’s why the fear grows that whether it’s really going to be an election or something else. Sheikh Hasina’s release (in parole or whatever) was great shake-up to the political deadlock. After Khandoker Delwar got EC’s invitation, this was another jump to progress. Begum Zia’s release has been a nearly fulfilment of the process. Now, what it needs is Sheikh Hasina back to the show in order to have a free and fair election. Already Begum Zia has stated, “This government may have complicacy in legality, but we must take this government as a reality, and maybe we will have to accept this government.” The same statement was from Sheikh Hasina months and months ago. This must be a high time for the regime to list the state of emergency in order to carry on a free-fair election rather than the High Court denying anymore bail appeals of Sheikh Hasina and anymore charge sheets with Begum Zia’s name.

(This is the 100th post by xanthis)

It’s not important that whether this is fortunate or unfortunate, but we are always to stuck some phrases and the political circumstances constantly precipitate our discussions to move towards those words. Prior to the January 11, 2007 coup d’état, the word banging our skulls was, ‘Dialogue’ (Bengali: সংলাপ). Every evening we were used to watch news in TV channels with video clips of Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan and Abdul Jalil. Smiles they were used to have was more friendly than necessary, that many suspected whether they are on the discussion of becoming in-laws in some consent. It’s clear that they were not talking about being in-laws as they have not been in-laws till today. But, this is never to be unfolded that what really these two guys had been talking about for five long days in the North Plaza of Bangladesh Jatiyo Shangshad.

Immediately after the coup d’état of January 2007, two words that have taught us and made us through all possible levels and layers of annoying monotony on earth, were ‘Corruption’ (Bengali: দূর্নীতি) and ‘Reformation’ (Bengali: সংস্কার) After going through a high quality X-ray test, the regime finally completed the list of leaders from all over the countries whose spines were subsequently missing, although they could stand straight. May be it was their standing straight without a backbone which impressed the regime; they were all admitted to the School of Reformation. Pickups from BNP got their graduation in October 29, 2007, whereas the whole studies of Awami League leaders were a complete covert effort. They were either given high quality lectures, or the lectures were so poor that they cannot act constantly in a flow, sometimes talk completely contradictory to the lectures they were given, again sometimes talk exactly how they are supposed to talk after reformation learning. However, after Begum Zia was released in bail, the BNP reformist pickups deserted their reformation alumni at a row, so the reformation word now is a bit suppressed, or you can say dropped.

Well, these are all old stories, but important. We were talking about words at hike. And beyond all suspicions, the word that is now trailing our ears aggravatingly is, ‘Dialogue between Two Leaders’ (Bengali: দুই নেত্রীর মধ্যকার সংলাপ). With the blessings of FBCCI leader and ‘progressive’ and ‘shushil’ businessman Anisul Haque and astray involvement of the 1/11 regime, Barrister Rafiqul Haque’s slack proposal for sake of words now have been the word to entitle the lead political news reports of media. The involvement of this regime in this case is the counted one. According to straight-forward talker Barrister Haque, we’ve learnt that Advisor Hossain Zillur phoned him at that very night of his statements at High Court office, to let him know that the regime is interested immensely to be a hand to the effort to combine two leaders at a table.

BNP-AL unity, two leaders embracing each other, resolving all political complicacies, these words have shiny attractive colours at the eyes of the media, as well as Anisul Haque and others of his type feel immensely glad to come to the media with these gaudies. We must not forget FBCCI President Abdul Awaal Mintu in 2001 presented a boat-printed sari to Sheikh Hasina and a paddy-printed sari to Khaleda in order to bring peace over this country. I don’t know where those saris presently are, but what I know is the outcome of those attempts was zero. If this memory recall sounds like I’m discouraging Anisul Haque to combine two leaders, well, the recall doesn’t sound that wrong.

The government have many questions to be asked about their interest behind having two leaders together in a dialogue. First question will arise about their own stance. They want two leaders talking to each other, but for what? In what point they’ll be insisted to come to agreement? Hossain Zillur Rahman consequently hails honesty and sincerity in the intension of the regime. But by showing strictness, the regime can’t have two leaders agreeing with them. They are adamant about having the elections amid state of emergency. They are adamant about having two elections back to back. Whereas our two political parties are almost similar in following issues:-

• The election in no way and no way can be held amid state of emergency. There is no utility of lifting it hours before the dawn of election date. It must be lifted, some weeks before the election.

• Upazilla election cannot be carried on seven days after the general election. In general election, candidates will have to reach people through grass-root leaders and activists. But grass-root leaders will be already campaigning for the Upazilla election where many of them will be candidates. In the circumstances, the whole campaign will be a complete mismanagement.

• There should be councils before having the parties approving any proposal from the government. The communication with all layers of party activists must take place. This is the prerequisite of democratization of political parties that the present 1/11 regime has been hailing like তোতাপাখি (parrot).

But here this is the other part of regime’s deliberation of arranging Khaleda-Hasina dialogue, where they’ve sternly turned down all these three points of unity of two parties. CEC Shamsul Huda in Dhaka, Hossain Zillur Rahman is Washington and D. Fakhruddin Ahmed in New York, have been saying, “There will be no problems with back to back elections!!! There will be no problems with back to back elections!!!” But we must not reproach the reality. It’s easy for a school to take back to back exams in its rooms. Teachers won’t have it as a big deal to invigilate back to back exams if they are provided with enough rounds of tea with biscuits and most importantly special allowances. But the students will be losing momentum and confidences to sit for both the exams. What would happen if the CEC Shamsul Huda were set to sit for matriculation exam and intermediate exam in one week? In that case he were not the one be the CEC today for sure.

Many have become quite relaxed after D. Fakhruddin’s addressing to the nation that the confusion over state of emergency is almost over. This is ridiculous. At the initial stage of 1/11 government when almost only person who knew to talk in Bangladesh was Barrister Mainul Hussain, who subsequently tried to debate in favor of carrying on election amid emergency rules. Barrister Hassan Arif several times stated that it’s possible to go for any election amid emergency rules. Gen. Matin, because of not being a guy of the courts, didn’t stated anything directly, but told the regime will consult its lawyers to explore resorts to hold the election amid emergency rules. Because of this is the emergency rules, nobody dared to ask any adviser that why the emergency ain’t lifted. This question will be a direct hit to the foundation of this regime which is extremely weak and fragile. Having a lawsuit being carried on in Supreme Court which challenges the regime of its legality and lawfulness of existence, this regime’s situation is enormously vulnerable and in the circumstance, they must come to agreement with political parties in issues of emergency rules and back to back election controversies. Before looking for the agenda of two leaders’ dialogue, they must take care of the one which is already an agenda at the agreement of BNP and Awami League.

Nurul Kabir, editor of The New Age, speaks to BBC.

Now, about the dialogue between two leaders. My personal observation is no such thing is going to take place in near future. I can see the attitude of Amir Hussain Amu. I can see the statements coming out of Suranjit Sengupta’s mouth. Shameless word selection of Abdur Razzaq in working committee meeting is also taken under consideration. This is almost clear that these three leaders, Amir Hussain Amu, Suranjit Sengupta and Abdur Razzaq, in no way are interested to have the two leaders dialogue to turn to reality. Sheikh Hasina still ain’t a free lady as Khaleda Zia is. But the momentum is stepping ahead in such way where we will have her free in some days. After getting free, she should recollect what happened to the party in last 18 months and what roles these three leaders played. This will be totally unexpected if these three leaders are taken back to positions those they held before 1/11. Bashing the family members of opponents is the way Amu, Suranjit and Razzaq have chosen to reconcile whatever they have learned from School of Reformation. But Sheikh Hasina must be good enough to recognize this. This will be a total discouragement for other loyal AL leaders if they see these three are forgone untouched. If Sheikh Hasina is going to take steps against backstabbing tendency of these three leaders, we can have hope of a dialogue. Otherwise, there is no way for the dialogue to be a reality. Though a dialogue (may be of month long) cannot solve all political disputes overnight, but the socialization of two top leaders I think should be considered.

Not in order to have political solutions overnight, just for sake of being less aggressive in future, the socialization of these two leaders are very important. And FBCCI President Anisul Haque is not the guy for this job. Barrister Rafiqul Haque is okay, he helped both of the ladies to bail out of the hell, and he is trusted by both of the ladies. Two parties too can take the initiative. I’ll prefer initiatives taken by Khandoker Delwar Hussain and Zillur Rahman. B

BBC interviews Syed Ashraful and Khandoker Delwar.

But FBCCI, BGMEA, Anisul Haque and bla bla, really should mind business.

Most of the Ramadans in my school life I have passed through different vacations. During school, I had the month long vacation after the final exam and the Ramadan was found to get stuck with either the post-final exam vacation or the very starting of a New Year and new level at school. Ultimately Ramadans in my school life were times of my relaxation due to lack of pressure from school or other study related stuffs. So, unlike many others who’ve seen most the Ramadans of their adolescence to be amid a year with a lot of pressure of studies, I have quite pleasant Ramadan memories of my adolescence.

Ramadan of Dhaka has its exclusive characteristics. The metropolitan lifestyle gets through changes in various sectors, like a whole new working schedule, a different manner of traffic in streets etc. Most of these properties of Ramadan in Dhaka theoretically are all unpleasant experiences. Like holding the staring wheel of the car amid traffic for hours, unexpected and unacceptable rush in markets, are not quite likeable. But the summation of all of these makes a special attitude of the city during Ramadan, which is a time to enjoy for me at least. I told earlier that my adolescence memories of Ramadan are quite pleasant because of less or no study related pressures indeed. But in college days, I’ve to remain stuck with classes or quizzes. I need to attend the class just few hours after the sehri and in some weekdays, the time I return home from college is just some minutes before the iftar. But the kind of my feeling over Ramadan started evolving from my childhood; as a result Ramadan is still a month of relief for me, to be precise a perfect pleasant time.

With other family members, cousins, an atmosphere in Ramadan is created to precipitate ourselves to be enjoying whereas still many of us are concerned with studies, work etc. Walking by iftar bazars in Bailey Road or other neighborhoods, attending Khatm-e-Tarabi after the iftar, tranquil attitude of people in streets or elsewhere, an added population in Jumua are some exclusive characteristics of Ramadan. The time immediately prior to the iftar is the one to be noted. Streets become off the crowd all of a sudden. Kids are seen to run towards public careers awaited at the traffic signal with water bottles. All these things, slides and scenes make a summation to form a pattern that is the overall Ramadan to me. Crowd at public places, traffic at streets, rush at iftar bazar, these are all part of it, nothing to get sore of, rather is be taken as a tradition.

Here I have put some images of Dhaka’s iftar bazar; shots mostly have been taken from Old Dhaka or Chakbazar’s narrow streets, where the real attraction of Dhaka’s iftar bazar can be discovered. For people who are not resident of Old Dhaka, the Chakbazar is the place to get weirder dishes for the iftar with weird names. One example is Boro Baper Beta, which is prepared by mostly Old Dhaka based cooks, is a rough mixture of sprouts, mutton or lamb roast, dry rice, salad with many kinds of spices.

Click on the images to get the enlarged copy.

Jilapi, has become a mandatory item in Dhaka’s iftar.

Mutton roast in traditional Old Dhaka style, is a popular choice for iftar in Old Dhaka.

Varieties of iftar item being sold at Chakbazar.

Chicken and mutton roasts with various spices.

Fruits are inevitable part of Bengali iftar.

Chicken bhuna curry, with excessive amount of spices.

Qababs are a popular item in Old Dhaka’s iftar tables.

Minutes prior to the iftar. Kids looking for customers on the way to break the holy fasting.

Date, is another inevitable part of Bangladeshi iftar.

Various kinds of qababs, prepared in perfect Old Dhaka style.

A typical Bengali iftar combination.

A lot of untold facts about Anti Corruption Commission have come out from the discovery of Mahmudur Rahman, the former Adviser of Fuel to the cabinet and former chairman of the Board of Investment. At the end of this article, Mahmudur Rahman has adamantly stated that it won’t be a surprise if his arrest, remand or torture come following this article. Keeping the difficulties of Bangla fonts in mind, the article have been presented in three segments one after one, each as gif image. After the article bellow the heading will start loading, you can simply start to read and the article load will complete as you will go ahead.

Case Study,
Anti Corruption
Commission

Mahmudur Rahman

The future of a party cannot be built on fickle leaders. More than anything, volatility of leaders is the most dangerous thing a party can ever get to deal with. Today’s act of BNP supporters in front of BSMMU, whether this was an appreciable political behavior, that can be pushed through other sort of justification, but it has been stated clearly that fickle leaders are in no way acceptable. Reformation is a word that has been given a total nasty meaning by these leaders under patronage of the present government. Now they must admit that what they have done was a mistake, they must let us come by the truth. They should explicate that in what situation, encouraged by whom they turned their back to the party during its troubled time. Their confession is the only thing that can help the supporters’ wrath to go low.

The Cox’s Bazar oriented tourism scenario has much changed in the last one and half decade. The place along with St. Martins was used to deal with a crowd that was considerably seasonal. But now, it can be merely stated that there’s no specific season in there. We have official weekends of two days. But whenever this is extended with a day or two, it becomes tricky for Cox’s Bazar hotel managers and officials to take a break in the rush of incoming phone calls for room reservation. Occasions of two Eid days and Durga Puja also send a huge crowd to hit Cox’s Bazar and St. Martins.

People’s mentality over tourism has changed. Affordable families of a tour now no more like to pass the leave of four days at a row at home. Their preference is Cox’s Bazar and St. Martin. This change of people’s mentality has urged the situation for Cox’s Bazar to become what now it is. But the stance of the government and its change has not been clearly visible.

To elaborate on possible governmental efforts over Cox’s Bazar, we have to throw light distinctively. There are a lot of grounds which government has to take care of. First of all there is the security which is considerably impressive. The law & order management strategy constantly changes with the rush of crowd as we can recall the deployment of extra 6,000 troops by police in last October, when the town was nearly shattered by an estimated 2 million tourists in a week. Several high ranking officials of Police including the Inspector General himself paid their visits to look after the management and that is appreciable.

Still there are ‘but’s over governmental efforts. If we focus on the accommodation structure, we see that the timeline between 80s and the mid of 90s, the tourist accommodation of Cox’s Bazar was solely controlled by hotels and motels owned and governed by Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation (BPC). Privately built hotels were nothing to tell about. But after the time started to change, BPC was not the one to contend with that change. Rather BPC has lost control from some of their major institutions. We recall the Silver Spoon, Inc. takeover of Motel Probal in late 2002. A large area inside Motel Probal acquisitions has been fully utilized by Silver Spoon, Inc., where they had set bar-b-q cottages, punting facilities etc. Now private investments are always welcomed, but we also should ask BPC that why they couldn’t do what Silver Spoon, Inc. did. BPC however retook the Motel Probal in 2005, but they couldn’t urge the ground to be under their influence long lastingly. Presently the Cox’s Bazar tourism is nearly in its height and BPC should now think about the opportunity which they have gradually forgone.

What Cox’s Bazar and Saint Martin need is a full government patronage, especially over the beach management, intra city communication (both transportation and streets), tourism promotion that is marketing the spot and attracting more and more investors, Bangladeshi investors should be prioritized.

Cox’s Bazar doesn’t enjoy that much of governmental patronages, whatever that stands upon is mostly private investment and finance. Still it is world’s one of the notable tourist spots on the earth having pure aesthetic attractions. There are few rated beaches in this world, most of them in United States & Australia, one in Thailand, one in Malaysia and some others in Europe. Cox’s Bazar is not contained by that list. But the difference is made only by the lovers of Cox’s Bazar, whoever loves it, enjoys going there for more and more times and the attraction doesn’t fade. This is the specialty of Cox’s Bazar. In 2005 I met a guy in the Seagull beach, who was visiting Cox’s Bazar with his wife. He told me he has visited 6 of the world’s ranked beaches, those are in Australia, but Cox’s Bazar is the one most exclusive to him and he was visiting it for 13th time then.

About the unquestioned adoration of Cox’s Bazar lovers, it’s not like it is loved because it belongs to our country. It’s adored because of the atmosphere and the pure aesthetic attraction that has been told earlier. The Cox’s Bazar oriented tourism is now to be considered in a larger scale. Government tourism policies and BPC strategies of 90s were may be suitable for the then circumstance, but the situation has gone through a promotion. Cox’s Bazar and Saint Martins Island, which is now formidably occupying the top of the ‘World’s New Seven Wonders’ list, evaluation over them will be a confused, if they don’t get enough attention of the government.

This post has also been published in Cox’s Bazar blog, The Writers’ Club, Cox’s Bazar Page at Facebook and Saint Martins Page at Facebook

It’s obviously not our fault that we expect sensible speeches from responsible men. But it’s our fate that we get completely insensible speeches. Our Chief Election Commissioner A.T.M Shamsul Huda has several times given us opportunities to get concerned with his poor sense of humor. We actually gave up all reasons to take CEC Huda seriously when he was presenting logics to name Maj. Hafizuddin as General Secretary of BNP with restless mumbling. But now he has reached into a position that now we can build up a chronology of CEC Huda’s poor humorous speeches. Our most honorable CEC has said,

“The state of emergency will ensure more security on the polling day for voters.”

I suggest there is something better that will make CEC feeling safer about the voters. There are lots of police personnels on duty due to the election. Now, the CEC should arrange all of them to remain armed for all the time and carry sufficient amount of ammunitions. Then, check-posts should be installed on each approachable street to poling centers, where police will halt every man & woman trying to pass by. Everyone will have to show their voter ID cards and other necessary documents to prove self to be the voter. Now, if someone fails to show such papers Police will have right to shoot them at the very next moment right on the spot. The system can be made full proof by shooting children and under 18 youngsters immediately after having in sight, because they surely will fail to provide necessary papers and this kind of worthlesses have no right to share oxygen and other resources of Bangladesh. Only those will survive from check posts to the poling centers who will have papers. There are several attractive advantages of this procedure,

• No unauthorized guys will roam around some hundred kilometers of poling centers.

• Completion of voter ID cards project with unquestioned perfection. (as people without papers will be killed, this means only ID cards holders will survive, that is a 100% Bangladeshi will have voter ID cards… wow!)

• Utmost security of voters, candidates, losers, winners officers etc. in the circumstance

• “The Bull is Dead!” – ultimate victory in the acid test, or the “Spanish Bull Fight” (that’s how CEC named his journey to the acid test)

What do you think? Isn’t it a better procedure to ensure voters’ safety? This idea will not only keep voters safe but also will preserve the purity and perfection of the election from all possible nuisances to be created by bloody politicians. This is a far more appreciable idea than state of emergency, eh?

Who on this earth has ever heard of such a ridiculous idea of ordering state of emergency to ensure voters’ safety?

Nobody else but Bangladeshi people, have heard yesterday.

After reading this article of New Age written by Capt. Hussain Imam, another thing has appeared in my mind. In that article named , writer has mentioned about ‘unpalatable humors’ of almost all important personalities of Bangladesh, apart from the present Chief Election Commissioner. Who knows? May be the CEC has read that article, found his name nowhere, gone frustrated, thought all over the night that what can be the shaky speech that he would give, found the speech and jumped shouting “eureka! eureka!” The speech that he found is the one mentioned earlier.

After reading this post, readers definitely are thinking that how a post has been published with this much of stupid talks.

Explanation over this is, if the CEC can do, why not a blogger?

Martialing the Law in Bangladesh

Rumi Ahmed

The military coup of 11 January 2007 is unique in modern history. This is probably the first of a kind where a military coup took place under an impeccable disguise of diplomat supported media sponsored military enforced civil society takeover. Martial law usually follows Military coups and this special constitutional provision of martial law usually provides the very important legal and political protection of the coup leaders.

The problem with 1/11 was that although the coup, thanks to co-conspirator media, was very easy; in the after math, the legal-political protection of martial law was not there. This was, IMO, was the most challenging side of the disguised military coup of 1/11.

There is no martial law; it means that the authority has to use the prevailing laws and processes to achieve the effect of martial law.

Initially a subservient chief justice served the purpose quite effectively. The state of affairs is a bit muddy these days with the ascension of a new chief justice. It will be a matter of time before we will know whether the new CJ will continue to follow the order of the General. (After all, you only can offer presidency to only one person, not two).

In the meantime, in addition to the hiring the chief justice to work as the military government’s button man, the ruling military authority has also engaged a multiple layer of safety network. The layers include, among others,

1. The Chief Justice: Any observer of higher court proceedings of the last 18 months will know that the Chief Justice either threw away all the high court rulings against government or formed-dismissed high court benches to serve his purposes.

2. Carrot and stick. Bring all the most senior lawyers of the Supreme Court in the general’s pocket. Both carrots and sticks were used to do this. Likes of Kamal Hossain, Amirul Islam, Rokonuddin Mahmud were shown the carrot of giving lucrative jobs in the coming govt. Some were coerced into submission. And the rest were made corrupt (media helped a lot) and was put in jail with incredible 35 -40 years jail sentences. Pro BNP Supreme Court lawyers’ assoc leaders like Aminul Haque and Nazmul Huda fell into this category. Aminul Haque apparently was handed 100 + years of jail term so far. The allegations-evidence is ridiculously flimsy. It is also getting clear now a days why Aminul Haque/Nazmul Huda were tried and sentenced with such a high priority.

3. The attorney General’s office, under the direct command of a dozen mid level military officers, served the legal side of government’s political motive. Cases were defended/ not defended; appeals were made or not made based on instructions from the military intelligence office that effectively rules the country now. Delivery of justice and merit of the case was never the factor in government decisions. Recently, the attorney general himself confessed that his office did not appeal the high court bail of right wing political leader Motiur Rahman Nizami as there was no pressure from the government to do so. However, the same office aggressively appealed against the bail of other political leaders jailed under the same case as the government (Military intelligence agency in this case) did not want the other leaders to get bail.

A recent news report detailed how the lawyers representing the government and Anti Corruption Commission under the auspices of Attorney general Office were working under the constant supervision of some army majors. This report, published in a vernacular daily, describes how the government lawyers were grouped in different teams of five lawyers and each group works at the instruction of an army major. The major will decide which case would be defended and which one would not be appealed etc.

4. The government with the help of those sold out senior lawyers like Kamal Hossain etc did their best to keep the lawyers community divided along the political line. A recent judgment regarding the job of ten judges is an example. This case suddenly came up out of nowhere and this issue was not even in the political agenda of the lawyers group representing political ideology of the judges. And interestingly, although the government was the defendant, the Attorney General Office did not move a finger to defend this case.

5. Another layer is letting the media lose against the stubborn judges. A new ordinance on contempt of court was passed early on after the coup of 1/11. With a more than helpful Chief Justice, the meaning and real implication of that ordinance was not very clear at that time. Some recent activities of the most trusted and effective media corps of this government, vernacular daily Prothom Alo, has finally clarified the real meaning of that ordinance.

The conspirators of 1/11 used these media very effectively in priming the public sentiment for a military coup. Now when the higher judiciary is going through a very restless time and thanks to a bunch of irrepressible Judges, government lost a series of very important proceedings, the power house has just played their latest card. A reporter in a vernacular daily started a public deliberation of some sub judies cases with some judges mentioning their name in first pages of the national daily. The recently promulgated contempt of court is ordinance is his shield. An extremely alarming precedence is being created. Partisan newspapers are openly dissecting, criticizing judgments and intimidating a sitting judge about future cases. Then what next? First page story on the scandals of the personal life of the judge’s daughter? I can not over emphasize this; this new precedence Prothom Alo has just created, is very dangerous and suicidal for a nation. This sort of media enforced dirty war on judicial system must be stopped at any cost.

6. We just talked about the latest card that is being played in Prothom ALo now. By no means is this the last card. There should be no doubt in everybody’s mind that if needed, much worse cards will be played against one or two headstrong judge.

Why one need a martial law if so many layers of mechanism are there to be used by the military regime?

—–

This post has originally been published in the blog of this writer.

BSF kill two BDR men in Chapainawabganj

Fri, Jul 18th, 2008 2:30 pm BdST

Chapainawabganj, July 18 (bdnews24.com) – Indian border guards gunned down two members of Bangladesh Rifles on the Raghunathpur border in Chapainawabganj in the early hours of Friday, a BDR officer said.
The dead were identified as Havildar Abdul Hannan Sarkar, 55, and Lance Naik Krishnapada Saha, 28.
Lt-Col. Golam Kibria Md. Neyamat Ullah, commander of BDR 39 Battalion, told bdnews24.com that a group from the Indian Border Security Force entered about 1300 yards into Bangladesh territory in Durlavpur union, shortly after Thursday midnight.
On a tip, Abdul Hannan Sarkar along with a BDR team rushed to the area and challenged the BSF members. But the Indian border guards opened fire on them killing the two BDR men at the scene, said Golam Kibria.
The incident has coincided with a foreign secretary-level talk between Bangladesh and India in New Delhi, where border security is one of the issues on the agenda.
Senior BDR officials visited the scene.
bdnews24.com/corr/my/rah/1250 hours

You can have a look at the bottom of this blog post. This post is tagged under “India is a Bad Neighbor”. I’ve been using that tag since I’ve started blogging. Some ask me why I have created such a tag like this; what’s wrong between me and India. Now, the news story block-quoted above explains my reasons quite better.

Chapainawabganj is not a locality where fear of man-eater species has been discovered. That’s not a place where international hostile groups carry on their drills and commit acts of terrorism. There is no threat from Bangladeshi security apparatus to attack India. There is no exasperation presently taking place between Bangladesh & India diplomacy. There is no riot anywhere threatening lives of any people. It’s not like Bangladesh Riffles personals look like a target practice card. So, what can be shown as reason of shooting at security forces of a neighboring country? What can be the reason of gunning down two BDR personals at the border? Were those two BDR personals taking preparations of India invasion?

To the date, some thousands of Bangladeshi citizens have been murdered by Indian security wacko group BSF. Border area residents of Bangladesh have been experiencing the tyrannical acts of India since our liberation. Kidnapping, torturing in BSF camps, kidnapping young Bangladesh women and then raping them, are common tendencies of BSF. Being ranked as one of world’s grossest smuggling-friendly frontier military unit, BSF has been doing these crimes and have been becoming the reason of international tension for many years. As the present regime of Bangladesh is not a elected one, rather they have been working as a close ally of India in all senses, it’s not sure how’ll be the reply from the Bangladeshi authority side. The guy, who’s already flushed off all points of Vienna Convention down to his commode, is Indian Ambassador to Bangladesh, the guy named Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty. His words never reflect any prospect of friendship between two nations. So, we do not expect any ambitious reply from Bangladesh against this murder of two BDR personnels. All I can say is, those BDR jawans should have known before risking their lives that their authority is not going to take care of how many of them are killed.

Welcome Aboard Biman

Mahruf Ahmed

12 July 2008

Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. This is your captain Mahmud welcoming both seated and standing passengers on board of “Biman”. We apologize for the four-day delay in taking off, it was due to bad weather, engine problems and a part time job I have in a fast food restaurant in New York.

This is flight 707 to Dhaka . Landing there is not guaranteed, but we will end up somewhere in Bangladesh. And, if luck is in our favor, we may even be landing in your village!

Bangladesh Biman has an excellent safety-record!!! In fact, our safety standards are so high, that even terrorists are afraid to fly with us! It is with pleasure; I announce that, starting this year, over 30% of our passengers have reached their destination.

If our engines are too noisy for you, on passenger’s request, we can arrange to turn them off! To make your free fall to earth pleasant and memorable, we serve complimentary Taree (Bangla alcohol).

For our not-so-religious passengers, we are the only airline who can help you find out if there really is a God!!! We regret to inform you, that today’s in-flight movie will not be shown as we forgot to record it from the television. However, for our movie buffs, we will be flying right next to Emirates Airline, where their movie will be visible from the right side of the cabin window.

There is no smoking allowed in this airplane. Any smoke you see in the cabin is only the early warning system on the engines telling us to slow down! If you see water dripping from the top of your head, don’t think it is raining outside, it could be the AC, that is leaking water and if you notice that you are feeling so hot, that means the AC is not working, please feel free to ask the air hostess for a hand fan.

We apologize for the inconvenience!! In order to catch important landmarks, we try to fly as close as possible for the best view. If however, we go a little too close, do let us know.

Our enthusiastic co-pilot sometimes flies right through the landmark!

Kindly be seated, keep your seat in an upright position for take-off and fasten your seat-belt. For those of you who can’t find a seat-belt, kindly fasten your own belt to the arm of your seat. And, for those of you who can’t find a seat, do not hesitate to get in touch with a stewardess who will explain how to fasten yourself to your suitcase.”

“Thanking you all for choosing “Biman” to fly for the first and last time”. Enjoy your flight.

* * * * *

Mahruf Ahmed is a Bangladeshi-British trainee pilot, presently studying BBA at North South University.

Thousands & millions of Bangladeshis, who are living abroad, always prefer to travel through the airliners of their homeland. Ignoring hilariously poor services, they do not abandon Biman. They can get a far more better service from other airlines at reasonable prices, but still they stick with Biman. Because they don’t like to abandon their homeland’s airliners. But how long the scene will remain like this? Many competitors are in the field. If the situation remains unchanged then it won’t be too long from now when we will have to see our Biman’s being outfaught off the scene.

Dhaka, July 9 (bdnews24.com) – The High Court on Wednesday stayed the proceedings of the Niko graft case against former prime minister Khaleda Zia for two months.

A HC bench of justices Khademul Islam Chowdhury and Mashuk Hossain Ahmed also asked the government and the Anticorruption Commission to explain within two weeks why the case against Khaleda should not be declared illegal.

The court order came after Khaleda Zia filed a writ petition to the court on Monday, for the second time challenging the legality of the Niko case against her and its proceedings in trial court.

The same HC bench on Monday halted the proceeding of two cases, including a separate Niko graft case, against former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, for two months.

Senior advocate Khandaker Mahbubuddin Ahmad, Barrister Rafiqul Islam Mia and Advocate Abdur Reza Khan represented Khaleda in court Wednesday.

They told the court that the case against their client had been filed and approved by the ACC without following proper legal procedure.

The HC bench held a hearing on the petition Tuesday, asking the ACC to submit documents, regarding the ACC’s filing and approval of the case by 2pm Wednesday.

Khaleda’s petition included a plea to quash the case, alongside a request to halt the case proceedings in the lower court as a primary step.

The former prime minister accused the Anticorruption Commission chairman, two commissioners, a deputy commissioner and the Special Judge’s Court-9 of Dhaka of misconduct in regard to filing and trying the case.

The petition also said said Khaleda, as prime minister, performed her official duties as per ‘rules of business’ when she asked BAPEX to take necessary steps regarding three abandoned gas fields according to guidelines and regulations. But the Niko case had been filed purposely to harass her, she claimed.

Khaleda mentioned that the ACC does not have the jurisdiction to challenge the ‘rules of business’, hence the Niko case filed against her has no legal standing.

The detained BNP chairperson had filed an earlier petition on May 18 to scrap the Niko case against. On May 20, a High Court bench said it was ‘too embarrassed’ to hear the plea. A second bench, on May 27, rejected the petition.

The Anticorruption Commission charged Khaleda and 10 others, on May 5, with scamming the state coffers of Tk 13,700 crore by signing the deal with Canadian company Niko Resources Ltd.

The ACC filed two separate graft cases involving deals with Niko against Khaleda and Hasina on Dec 9 last year.

bdnews24.com/at/my/rah/1651hours

এখনও নিশ্চিত করে বলা যাচ্ছেনা যে আওয়ামী লীগ সভানেত্রী শেখ হাসিনার মুক্তির বিষয়টিকে কি বর্তমান সরকারের শুভবুদ্ধির উদয় হিসেবে চিহ্নিত করা যায় কি না। বাণিজ্য উপদেষ্টা হোসেন জিল্লুর রহমান তার চিরাচরিত ‘ড়’-সমৃদ্ধ বাচনভঙ্গিতে জানিয়েছেন যে সরকার শেখ হাসিনার নেতৃত্বে আওয়ামীলীগের সাথে সংলাপে যেতে প্রস্তুত, এ ব্যপারে সরকারের সদিচ্ছা রয়েছে। বাংলাদেশের রাজনীতি বর্তমানে যে ডেডলকের শিকার হয়ে আছে, তা থেকে শান্তিপূর্ণ ভাবে বেরুনোর জন্য সরকারের সদিচ্ছা অবশ্যই জরুরি। শেখ হাসিনা বাংলাদেশে সবচেয়ে জনপ্রিয় দুজন জীবিত ব্যাক্তির একজন। এ সত্য প্রমাণিত ও সকল তর্ক-বিতর্কের উর্দ্ধে। তাকে মুক্তি দেয়া বর্তমান রাজনীতিক সংকটের অবসানের জন্য খুবই গুরুত্বপূর্ণ এতে কোন সন্দেহ নেই। আর এতেও কোন সন্দেহ নেই যে দুজন জনপ্রিয় ব্যাক্তির একজনকে আটক রেখে আরেকজনকে মুক্তি দিলে সমস্যার কোন অর্থপূর্ণ সমাধানে পৌছানো সম্ভব নয়।

সরকার এখন পর্যন্ত মোট কটি দলের সাথে সংলাপে বসেছে তা আমি শুরুতে গুনতে শুরু করেছিলাম। কিন্তু পরে দেখলাম এতগুলো পার্টির নাম মনে রেখে গোনাটা বেশ কষ্টকর কাজ। এই পার্টিগুলোর প্রায় সবই সরকারের সাথে সংলাপে বসেছেন, চায়ে ভিজিয়ে সল্টেড বিস্কিট আর স্যান্ডউইচও খেয়েছেন। এবং বি. চৌধুরি, হাসানুল হক ইনু বা কামাল হোসেনের পক্ষ থেকে কিছু অলীক-রুপকথা পর্যায়ের রাজনৈতিক প্রস্তাব ছাড়া এই সংলাপে বলার মত কিছুই ঘটেনি। একটি ল্যাপটপ সামনে রেখে হোসেন জিল্লুর রহমান সাহেব একের পর এক দলের সাথে সংলাপ করে গেছেন। রাজনৈতিক সংলাপে ল্যাপটপের কি ব্যাবহার থাকতে পারে, তার সম্ভাব্য যুক্তি খন্ডন করতে গিয়ে দুর্জনেরা বলেন, আগে থেকে ঠিক করে রাখা কথাগুলো ঠিকঠাক নির্ভুল ভাবে উপস্থাপন করার উদ্দেশ্যেই হোসেন জিল্লুর সাহেব সংলাপের মাঝে ল্যাপটপে অক্লান্ত গুতোগুতি করেন। নিন্দুকদের আরেকটি ছোট দল আছে যারা ল্যাপটপের আরেকটি অপ্রিয় ব্যাবহারের কথা বলছেন। দুর্জনদের বক্তব্য বিশ্লেষনে আমরা না যাই। বাস্তবতা বিবেচনা করলে দেখা যায়, দেশে বিদ্যমান শ’খানেক পার্টির হাজার খানেক নেতার সাথে বছরচুক্তি সংলাপ করে কাজের কাজ কিছুই হবে না, যদি বিএনপি আওয়ামী লীগ সংলাপে না আসে। এটা খুবই বাস্তব সত্য যে বিএনপি আওয়ামী লীগ সংলাপে বসলে দেশের আর কোন রাজনৈতিক দল সেখানে না থাকলেও কোন সমস্যা হতনা। কিন্তু এখানে ঘটেছে উল্টোটা। বিএনপি আওয়ামী লীগ ছাড়া আর সবাই সংলাপে গিয়েছেন। যার কারণে সংলাপের কোন প্রভাব দেশের মানুষের মধ্যে পড়েনি। তারা জানতেও চায়না কে সংলাপে গেল, না গেল। এই আজও দেখলাম আ.স.ম. আব্দুর রব সংলাপে গিয়ে জাতীয় সরকারের জন্য দরবার করেছেন। এধরণের দাবিগুলো সংলাপের গুরুত্ব জনমনে আরও কমিয়েছে। যে সংলাপে কোন পার্টি একটি তত্ত্বাবধায়ক সরকারকে সংবিধান পরিবর্তনের পরামর্শ দেয়, সেই সংলাপের ব্যাপারে মানুষের অনীহা সৃষ্টি না হওয়ার কোন কারণ নেই। যেসকল পার্টি এখন পর্যন্ত সংলাপে অংশ নিয়েছে, দু’একটি ছাড়া কোনটিরই রাজনৈতিক ক্ষেত্রে কোন ধরণের কোন সাফল্য নেই। দু’একজন ছাড়া একজন নেতাও এখনও জানেননা নির্বাচনে জয়লাভ বস্তুটি আসলে কি। দু’একজন যারা জানেন, তারা জীবণের শেষকালে এসে একটা পলিটিকাল ফ্যান্টাসির ঘোরে আছেন, একদা-সাফল্য হারানোর বেদনা ভুলতে না পেরে তারা আবোল-তাবোল বক্তব্য দেন, কথায় কথায় “জাতীয় সরকার! জাতীয় সরকার!” জপ তোলেন। এসব কোন দল বা কোন নেতাকেই মানুষ দেশের রাজনৈতিক ভবিষ্যতের কোন কার্যকর অংশ হিসেবে মনে করেনা। যার কারণে এদের অংশ নেয়া সংলাপের খবরকে দেশের সচেতন মানুষ অখ্যাত চিত্রশিল্পীর আর্ট এক্সিবিশানের খবরের চেয়ে বেশি গুরুত্ব দেয়না।

উপরোক্ত সবগুলো কথাই বর্তমান সরকারের রাজনৈতিক সংলাপ ক্যাম্পেইনের ব্যাপারে কিছু বাস্তব সত্য। আর এগুলো যে আমি সহ দেশের শুধুমাত্র গুটিকতক মানুষই জানে, তাও নয়। সরকারের কর্তাব্যাক্তিরাও এ ব্যাপারে বেশ সচেতন। লক্ষ্য করলে বোঝা যাবে, সরকার শুরুতে দুই নেত্রীকে ছাড়াই দুদলকে সংলাপে আনতে চেয়েছিল। বিএনপিকে চিঠি দেয়ার ক্ষেত্রে খন্দকার দেলোয়ার আর হাফিজুদ্দিন দুজনকেই চিঠি দেয়া হয়। বিশেষ করে খন্দকার দেলোয়ারকে ‘মহাসচিব’ আখ্যা দিয়ে চিঠি দেয়া হয়। এতে হাফিজুদ্দিন কান্নাকাটি শুরু করেন এই বলে যে তাকে কেন মহাসচিব বলা হলনা। কিছুদিন আগেও যে হাফিজ বর্তমান সরকারের খুবই নেকনজরে ছিল, এবার সরকার হাফিজের অশ্রুর কোন মূল্যই দিল না। ধরে নেয়া যায় সরকার বিএনপিকে সংলাপে পেতে খন্দকার দেলোয়ারকে মূলধারার মহাসচিব হিসেবে স্বিকার করেই নিয়েছিল। এদিকে সংলাপের আমন্ত্রনের পর মতিয়া চৌধুরী ছাড়া আওয়ামীলীগের আর সব নেতাই দোনোমনো করছিলেন যে সংলাপে তাদের আদৌ যাওয়া উচিত হবে কিনা। মতিয়া চৌধুরী শুরু থেকেই বলেছেন নেত্রী ছাড়া সংলাপের প্রশ্নই আসেনা। আর খন্দকার দেলোয়ার শুরুতেই সাফ জানিয়ে দিয়েছিলেন যে চেয়ারপার্সন বেগম জিয়াকে ছাড়া কোন সংলাপ নয়। খন্দকার দেলোয়ারের এই ঘোষণার পরদিন আওয়ামী লীগ প্রেসিডিয়াম থেকে ঘোষণা আসে তারা নেত্রীকে ছাড়া সংলাপে যাচ্ছেন না, তোফায়েল আহমেদ, আমু, রাজ্জাক এক প্রতীকি অনশনে এই ঘোষনা দেন, পরে ভারপ্রাপ্ত সাধারণ সম্পাদক সৈয়দ আশরাফুল ইসলামও এই ঘোষণা দেন। দুই দলের এরকম অবস্থানের পর হোসেন জিল্লুর রহমান পড়ে যান বিপদে। তিনি “আমি আশাবাদী! আমি আশাবাদী!” বলে মুখের ফেনা তুলে ফেলেন। তখন থেকে এই এখন পর্যন্ত বাংলাদেশের রাজনীতি একটা ডেডলকের মধ্যে আটকা পড়ে আছে। ছোট শিশুও বোঝে দুই নেত্রীকে মুক্তি দেয়া ছাড়া এই লক থেকে বেরুবার কোন রাস্তা নেই। ছোট শিশুর চেয়ে সরকার অবশ্যই বেশি বুদ্ধি রাখে, তাই তারা হয়তো অল্টারনেটিভ খুজছিলেন। তারা খুজে পেতে কি অল্টারনেটিভ পেলেন তা জানা যাচ্ছে না, তবে আজ আওয়ামী লীগ সভানেত্রী শেখ হাসিনা মুক্তি পেলেন। তাকে মুক্তি দিতে গিয়ে আভ্যন্তরীণ ভাবে সরকারকে একটি আইনী জট খুলতে হয়েছে, যে জট তারা নিজেরাই সৃষ্টি করেছিলেন কিছুদিন আগে।

ধরে নেয়া যাক, বর্তমান রাজনৈতিক সংকট থেকে মুক্তি পাওয়ার লক্ষ্যেই মুক্তি দেয়া হয়েছে শেখ হাসিনাকে। কিন্তু, শুধুমাত্র শেখ হাসিনার নেতৃত্বে আওয়ামী লীগকে সংলাপে উপস্থিত রেখে যদি ভবিষ্যতে কেউ এই সংলাপের সাফল্য খোজেন, তবে সেই সাফল্য কোনদিনই পাওয়া যাবেনা।

দেশের পুরো রাজনৈতিক কাঠামো দেশের দুটি প্রধান দলের উপর ভিত্তি করে নির্মিত। দুটি দলের মাঝে যেকোন একটি দলকে বাদ দিলে আরেকটি দলের উপস্থিতি কোন প্রভাব ফেলতে পারেনা। দুটি দলের যেকোন একটিকে সরিয়ে রেখে দেশের ভবিষ্যত পরিকল্পনা করা চরম অদূরদর্শীতা।

আওয়ামী লীগ সভানেত্রী শেখ হাসিনাকে আজ মুক্তি দেয়া হয়েছে এবং সরকারি মুখপাত্র হোসেন জিল্লুর রহমান জানিয়েছেন তারা শেখ হাসিনার নেতৃত্বে আওয়ামী লীগকে সংলাপে পেতে চায়। এই পদক্ষেপ স্বাগত জানাবার মত। কিন্তু শুধুমাত্র আওয়ামী লীগের সাথে সংলাপ করে দেশের কোন রাজনৈতিক সমাধান পাওয়ার আশা করা চরম অদূরদর্শীতা। শেখ হাসিনার চিৎসকরা তার উন্নত চিকিৎসার জন্য আবেদন জানিয়েছেন বলে তাকে প্যারোলে মুক্তি দেয়া হয়েছে একথা আমরা সবাই জানি। কিন্তু হোসেন জিল্লুর রহমানের ঐ বক্তব্যের পর এটি অবশ্যই প্রতীয়মান যে তাকে মুক্তি দেয়ার পেছনে রাজনীতিও সম্পৃক্ত আছে। আর রাজনৈতিক সমাধানের জন্য সংলাপে শেখ হাসিনা আর বেগম খালেদা জিয়া উভয়ের উপস্থিতি একান্ত জরুরি।

সরকার তার আইনী তৎপরতার মাধ্যমে যেভাবে শেখ হাসিনাকে মুক্তি দিয়ে তাকে রাজনীতিতে অংশ নেয়ার সুযোগ সৃষ্টি করেছে, তেমনি বেগম খালেদা জিয়ার মুক্তির ব্যাপারেও সরকারকে তৎপর হতে হবে, আন্তরিক হতে হবে। আমরা সবাই দেখেছি তারেক রহমানকে কিভাবে আদালতে হাজির করানো হয়েছে। তিনি একটানা পাঁচ মিনিট বসে বা দাঁড়িয়ে থাকতে পারেননা। আমরা দেখেছি আরাফাত রহমান কিভাবে আদালতে উপস্থিত হন। এদের প্রত্যেকের মেডিকেল রিপোর্ট আদালতে পেশ করা হয়েছে। পেশ করেছেন সেসব চিকিৎসকরা যাদের সরকার নিয়োগ দিয়েছে। এনারা জানিয়েছেন তারেক রহমান দুটি শারীরিক সমস্যার শিকার হয়েছেন যার একটির চিকিৎসা বাংলাদেশ বা তার আশেপাশের কোন দেশেই হয়না। তাকে অবিলম্বে মুক্তি দিয়ে বিদেশ না পাঠালে তাকে আমরণ পঙ্গুত্ব বরণ করতে হবে। আরাফাত রহমান কোকোর ব্যাপারে ঠিক একই বক্তব্য পেশ করেছেন চিকিৎসকরা। তাদের অবিলম্বে মুক্তি দেয়া হোক।

Saswoto Satya

:Walking The

Path Of Dreams

Prof. A Al Mamun

After a long time, I was surprised by my first year journalism class. The subject was the history of the printing industry. Every now and then I would ask questions—day one, day two, day three. My experience of last few years has really robbed me of hope. The new generation has just completely given up on education. I ask, have you read the Mahabharata? I get the reply, no sir I haven’t. Sometimes, someone will say, sir, but I saw the serial on TV. Even though I have stopped hoping, I still ask these questions during a lecture. Out of habit, almost mechanical, without really waiting for an answer.

But this year I was stunned, there was one boy who did know the answers. All the answers. I asked, where was paper invented, he replied, China. I asked who invented modern printing and where is he from—I got the reply, Johannes Gutenberg, from Germany’s Mainz. Have you read Tagore’s novels? Yes sir, I have. Have you read Manik? Yes sir, I have read some of it. My eyes go back repeatedly to this one bright student.

I become curious about this sudden light. I start paying attention to him. His name is Saswoto Satya. Lively, bright eyes. He walks around with a crutch in his left hand. He frequently comes to talk to me after class, I give him advice, recommend some essential books, lay out the ABC’s of journalism. It feels good to be doing this again. An eager student becomes an asset and inspiration for the teacher. I start thinking, this student has a future, I need to give him more books to read, inspire him through discussion. I need to build up his potential— make him aware of state infrastructure, society and media theory. In this way the days passed and we became closer.

After the first in-course exam, I ask him how he did. “Not good sir,” comes the reply. I become quite upset, “Why not?” He looks at me and replies, “I can’t write for very long at a stretch. My hand becomes numb, Sir.”

Until now, I had focused on the expansion of his mental universe. Now the cruel logic of his body forced itself into our conversations.

The history of Saswoto’s battle with his own body is rather long and tragic. From 1998 to 2008. His condition has regularly deteriorated, one by one his limbs have rebelled and become inert. With tremendous willpower Saswoto has continued to advance, even though defeat has always seemed certain. From 2004 to 2006, he was completely bed-ridden, his entire back became covered with infection. Everyone had already accepted him as lifelong cripple, only Saswoto refused to give in. With all the strength of his body and mind, in 2006 he started crawling, dragging himself out of bed. Then at one point he started walking tentative steps on two crutches, his entire back bent over from the effort. Ignoring the tremendous pain of his own body, he somehow gave the HSC examination in 2007. This year he got admitted into our department, walking on one crutch.

I have never seen him absent in a single class. Always battling against death, against fate. Making the grim reaper’s task that much more difficult. At one point his parents gave up on local doctors and took him to Kolkata’s Peerless Hospital. There they learnt that Saswoto was suffering from Serionegative Rheumatoid Arthritis, a disease they had never heard of. He would have to come for treatment every three months.

“While in Kolkata I read a book about Pranayam. After doing that, I got back my willpower and started to stand up slowly in 2006, even with a hump.” He went to Velore in June. Now the doctors said the disease had degenerated further into Enciloging Spondinalaitis. They also informed him that his left hip joint had been destroyed and other body joints were going to gradually degenerate as well. If he was not given four injections as quickly as possible, his other body joints would be damaged beyond repair.

Each of the injections cost two lakh rupees. His father is unable to cover this cost, so his treatment has stopped for last two years. His left leg and spine had already acquired a curve. His right hip joint was now under attack.

Looking at this lively, energetic boy, who would guess his whole body was being eaten away from inside, by an invisible enemy? Who would know that each night he was going to sleep only after taking thousand-power pain killers?

Sometimes while talking to me, he would lean over in his chair and say, “Sir, my charge is almost finished. When I go home, I have to take painkillers to go to sleep. Only then can I come to class the next day. Those medicines are my battery charger.”

We walk him to a ricksha at the end of class. We can’t talk about our own able bodies with each other. The memories of Saswoto float in the hot April air and occupy our waking moments.

Saswoto’s mother is a housewife. His father is a retired school teacher. The family is already bankrupt from twenty trips to Kolkata, three trips to Velore, and purchasing powerful painkillers for a little bit of peace at night. From their written records, they have already spent eleven lakh Taka, and many other expenses are unrecorded.

At the very end of their financial means, Saswoto’s parents cannot imagine how they will save their son. But we know. We know how to save him from becoming a cripple and then dying a painful death. What Saswoto’s father can never manage, a million joined hands can accomplish. We know that people will, indeed they must, step forward to help this promising young man.

This is why our department’s students, professors and employees have created a committee to help Saswoto with his medical treatment. We are currently fundraising via two bank accounts:

1. “Saswoto Medical Treatment Assistance”
Agrani Bank
Rajshahi University Branch
Account No. 34260498

2. “Saswoto Chikitsa Sohayota”
Dutch-Bangla Bank Ltd
Account No. 135-101-33705
SWIFT CODE: DBBL BD DH 100

We deeply desire that, even with a body full of pain, Saswoto bring his lively, positive, productive presence back to our university campus. Even with a body full of poison, we want him to walk across the map of his dreams.

I look at him every day and think of Abul Hasan’s poem:

“Oyster, take the pain inside, bear it silently
Close your mouth around poison sand, and birth a pearl.”

Let us give him the chance to at least try.

Prof. A Al Mamun is assistant professor in the department of Mass Communication & Journalism, Rajshahi University. This also has been published here in Unheard Voices.

The Challenge is

Even Bigger

Husain Imam

THE present non-political caretaker government, that came to power on January 11, 2007, under emergency rules apparently with the objective of setting things right for a free, fair and credible election, and transition to a sustainable democracy, has been since then treading through a hazardous path to reach that goal. They have a road map to march on, and have so far covered two-thirds of an arduous journey along the declared road map without much trouble, thanks to the emergency rules. But now they have reached a stage from where they might find the road ahead much harder and trickier than they could possibly think.
They are now holding dialogues with the political parties to pave the way for the much- awaited national election by the 3rd week of December this year, as promised by Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed, the chief of the caretaker government, in his latest televised address to the nation.
The election has to be credible and acceptable to all at home and abroad and, at the same time, the winner in that election has to be a party that will ensure if possible, continuity of the measures they have undertaken for good or bad during their rule. How far they will succeed in their mission, nobody can say for sure.
What can, however, be said for sure is that the country is passing through very hard times. With the scarcity of rice and wheat world over, soaring prices of essential commodities and food items that have reached a level far beyond the buying capacity of more than half the population of the country, abnormally high prices of crude oil in the international market ($130 per barrel), crises of electricity and water, lack of employment opportunities, political instability, rise of Islamic militancy — all added together — the country with per capita income as low as a dollar and a quarter per day is facing a big challenge.
The topic I am more interested to discuss here may prove an even bigger challenge for Bangladesh in the not so distant future in terms of a nation’s history. That is about climate change because of global warming.
According to recently published research reports of world scientists, environmentalists and climate experts, it is now proven beyond doubt that greenhouse gas emission (GHGE), caused primarily due to burning of fossil fuel in the mills, factories and vehicles has direct link with global warming, in turn, with negative effects of climate change.
Because of greenhouse gas emission, the world is warming up, glaciers are melting, the sea level is rising, and the world climate is changing — all at a faster rate than ever before.
Whereas industrialised and developed countries like America, Europe, Canada Japan, Australia, now joined by India and China, are primarily responsible for the GHGE, the worst sufferers are the underdeveloped countries.
The way world temperature is rising because of GHGE, if no effective measures are taken right now for substantial reduction of GHGE rate, the dry and the low level areas of the world, especially regions in Africa and Asia, will be visited by natural calamities like floods, cyclones, tidal waves, droughts, desertification, rise of sea level, etc., more frequently and severely than ever before.
As a result, food security, housing problems, availability of drinking water, in fact the entire economic and social harmony of these countries, will be in jeopardy.
The reason for Bangladesh to be more concerned about global warming is that, according to the available reports (on climate change), Bangladesh and Maldives are two countries that will be worst affected because of global warming.
Cyclone Sidr, that hit Bangladesh on November 15, 2007 and caused havoc to its south western coastal belt, and then cyclone Nargis of May 3, another severe tropical storm appearing in the vicinity in less than 6 months time, might as well be taken as a red-alert for the governments and the people of this region to get into the serious business of dealing with the consequence of the alarming climate change due to global warming.
According to experts, if the pace at which the world temperature is rising at the moment continues unchecked, by 2050 nearly one-fifth of Bangladesh will go under the sea. As a result, besides acute food crisis, at least 20 million people will lose their habitations and become climate refugees, which will cause serious threats to the peace and stability of the country. At present, our population density is 1000 plus per square kilometer, enough to cause problems of food and housing.
If the population growth rate of Bangladesh remains as it is, and global warming continues unabated, by 2050 we will have 300 million people to live in just about a 120,000 sq kilometers area (reduced due to sea level rise), increasing the country’s population density to 2500 or more per square kilometer.
Imagine the situation. Because of rise of sea level, the area of agriculture land is shrinking. Population is increasing. People are cutting forests or using agricultural land to settle their housing needs, making less and less land available for food production. Because of deforestation, the climatic effects are becoming more and more acute.
So grave and ominous being the situation, it is high time for our governments, our planners and the policy makers to adopt comprehensive plans for 50 years or so, which may include, among others, building of higher and stronger embankments along the coastal belt of the country, construction of sufficient number of strongly built multi-purpose cyclone shelters for both human beings and livestock, and growing of extensive mangrove forests along the seashores.
It is also high time we joined hands with other least developed countries in gearing up the movement to compel the industrially developed countries not only to make substantial reduction of gas emission but also to bear the costs of aforesaid projects as compensation.
More importantly, it is high time we at home gave more attention and priority to increasing production of food grains and agricultural products, controlling population growth and stopping deforestation.
It is imperative that we make a habit of planting trees around our houses, do not leave any land uncultivated, change our food habits, and provide proper education to our children so that they can become a skilled and efficient manpower capable enough to face the challenges.

This has also been published here in The Daily Star.

This may appear as a misdirection for all BNP supporters-activists force as well as the whole nation, if our thinkers seem to be convinced by the ultra-recurrence of “unification call” by so called reformists. Some mysteriously compromised leaders as Hafizuddin, Z.A. Khan, Mahbubur Rahman (I know it sounds yawning, but here some ex-Generals are being led by an ex-Major) are showing no sign of fatigue in their efforts of unification. They sound like Bangladesh Nationalist Party is divided into some thousands of fragments & need to be unified by some superstitious gum or something. But I just don’t understand what these people are trying to unify? Why they use the term ‘unify’? I have heard A.S.M Hannan Shah to use this word too. When you have no division in the party, then how can you unify it? Can the Hafiz-gang be called as respectable ‘part’ of the party? They just have some leaders those are illustrious by no mean. They don’t have any supporter. They don’t have anything new to say. They call themselves reformists but have no clear conception that how the reformation may go. They have a decreasing numbers of men in the cult, some are leaving the country, some are surrendering to court etc. Why somebody should call them a party or as a part of the party? You can track its justifications down reading the example below.

We all know Bangladesh is a declared arc-rival of RAW (it ain’t a fun, check this link out then know more about it). Suppose a Bangladeshi citizen has defected to India for some unknown reasons. He made irrational statements against the state administrators and then took shelter in the Indian Embassy where he feels it’s safe. Then he is transported to India arranging a political asylum. That dissident Bangladeshi, suppose after some months or years of living a gross life in some RAW incubator, he has thought there is something wrong in India, at least he no more likes to be there. Now, if he desires to come back to Bangladesh, should he ask for a “unifying call” to Bangladesh government? How will this sound like? He is just a citizen who has once deceived what Bangladesh has offered him, now he thinks he was wrong so he desires to come back. Can this be called a “unification”? I was never a part of Bangladesh government, but I can ask questions to people who are running this government towards somewhere. What do you think Sirs? Would you accept that person to come back under a process named “unification”? I must say Sir you wouldn’t. You would have asked him to beg apology and then you would let him come back. Isn’t it? Now we must consider that this would be thing that you should do in that circumstance.

[I could bring examples from a thousands of such affairs of Cold War era, but I have pulled this because I think this much reflects the relation of India & Bangladesh, as much as the commotion into it caused by recent Jaipur bombings]

So, why should the BNP leadership accept the comeback of Hafiz-gang as“unification”? Today D. Emazuddin has said the adamancy of Khandoker Delwar Hussain can damage the nationalist force of Bangladesh. I never have a shred of lack of respect on D. Emazuddin. But here I must say he has misunderstood the situation. Hundreds of men those accompanied Hafiz to BNP office on 13 November last year and some others who often come to Hafiz’s home with some flowers to congratulate Hafiz for his ‘great deeds’, have been pretended as BNP supporters. Bangladesh is the seventh most populated country of the world. Here, the average price of people’s time & labor is extremely low. It wasn’t a big deal even it’s never a big deal for Hafiz or anybody to create a crowd like that. Lots of unemployed people won’t miss the chance to get paid in exchange of just smiley appearances before the press and video cameras. That’s what happened in BNP office in November last year after the ban on indoor politics was lifted, that’s what now happens at Hafiz’s home (sometimes Mannan’s home too especially at the court during his surrender). Now, this obviously over-estimates the position of Hafiz if we pretend those paid crowds to be BNP activists. They were by no mean BNP supporters. So, when some party-leaders, who deceived the party rules once and tried to show the party divided by showing down with paid crowd, can they be back to the party without begging apology? Never they can. Khandoker Delwar Hussain has asked for less. He has just asked to declare the 29 Octobers meeting as ineffective. Khandoker Delwar should have asked them to beg apology. I want to state to D. Emazuddin and all of men and women who concern about the present situation of BNP and overall Bangladesh politics, what Khandoker Delwar Hussain is doing now, is not irrational adamancy, this is what he should do, this is what convinces us that he was the right choice.

Quotes:

“আজ হোসেন জিল্লুর রহমান এই যে সাংবাদিকদের প্রশ্ন করতে দিলেন না, আমি বলব এই আচরণের মাঝে অগণতান্ত্রিকতা আছে, স্বৈরাচারিতা আছে। এবং বক্তব্য বিষয়ের উপর আর কোন প্রশ্ন আশার পথকে রুদ্ধ করার এই প্রচেষ্টা দ্বারা বোঝা যায়, বক্তব্যদাতা নিতান্তই ক্ষমতাহীন, দূর্বল এবং আংশিক বা সম্পূর্ণ রূপেই অজ্ঞ, আমি অন্তত তাই মনে করি।”

[“The press briefing where Hossain Zillur Rahman didn’t allow the press to ask any questions, I must say, there is a sign of autocratic tendency in this kind of behaviour. And in this ill will of barring the press to quiz, this indicates that the spokesperson definitely is a powerless, partly or completely unaware of facts and they are just errand people, at least I think it to be so.”]

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“আমি এমনিতে ঠাট্টা করেই বলতে চাই, আগামী সরকার, মানে এই সরকারের পরের সরকারের অর্থমন্ত্রী যিনি হবেন, তিনি যে অর্থমন্ত্রী হয়েছেন, এটা তার নিজের পাপের ফল, তার বাপের পাপের ফল, তার দাদারও পাপের ফল, সর্বোপরি এটা তার চোদ্দ গুষ্টির পাপের ফল যে তাকে ঐ পরিস্থিতিতে একজন অর্থমন্ত্রী হতে হয়েছে।”

[“Satirically, the person who will become the Minister of Finance of the next cabinet, his being the minister will be the punishment of his own sins, his father’s sins and his grandfather’s sins. Ultimately it will be a punishment of the sins of his whole fourteen generations that he has to be the Minister of Finance at predecessor cabinet of the present one.”]

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“নির্বাচন কমিশনার সাহেবরা সাংবাদিকদের বলেছেন যেন কেন্দ্রীয়ভাবে ফলপ্রকাশের আগে মিডিয়া কোন ফল প্রকাশ না করে। তারা আরও আইন করে রেখেছেন যে যেকোন মুহুর্তে যেকোন কারণে তারা যেকোন প্রার্থীর প্রার্থীতা বাতিল করতে পারেন। তার উপর দেশে চলছে জরুরী অবস্থা। এতে তো স্পষ্টই বোঝা যাচ্ছে বর্তমান সরকার এই অনুগত এবং চাকুরিজীবি মনোভাবাপন্ন নির্বাচন কমিশনারদের সহায়তায় নির্বাচনের ফলাফল পরিবর্তনের মানসিক প্রস্তুতি নিয়ে রেখেছেন”

[“Election commissioners want the media not to publish the election results until it ain’t published by the EC itself. They have also made some rules that they, at any condition, for any reason and at any moment, can cancel the candidacy of any candidates anywhere they want. On the other hand there remains a state of emergency. This is crystal clear that the present government, with a loyal EC is in the way of manufacturing the election results in the way it wants”]

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“গত কয়েকদিন যাবত আওয়ামীলীগের নেতাদের নানান বক্তব্য শুনে আমার মনে হয়েছে, এ বুঝি কোন সরকারী দলের নেতারা কথা বলছেন। সরকারের মতই উৎসাহের সাথে তারা সবাইকে নির্বাচনে যাবার আহবান জানাচ্ছেন এবং সরকারের মতই জোর দিয়ে ১৮ই ডিসেম্বারে নির্বাচন হবে বলে হুংকার দিয়ে যাচ্ছেন।”

[“Statements of Awami League leaders for last couple of days is sounding like a ruling party is saying those words. They are making calls to other political parties as the regime is doing, they are expressing their stubborn resolution that the election will take place and must take place on December 18, just as the regime is doing”]

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“কিছু উপদেষ্টারা কথায় কথায় বলে থাকেন, রাজনীতির গুণগত উত্তরণের জন্য রাজনীতিবিদদের আরও দায়িত্মবান হওয়া প্রয়োজন। কিন্তু তারা মূল সত্যটিই উপলব্ধি করতে পারছেননা যে রাজনীতির গুণগত উত্তরণের জন্য সবার আগে বর্তমান সরকারের বিদায় প্রয়োজন।”

[“Some advisers cite this constantly that politicians should act more responsibly to bail out from the present political stalemate. But they are not realizing the most unbreakable truth that their departure is the breakthrough to bail out of the stalemate”]

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“সরকার যেমন নিজেদের অবস্থান স্পষ্ট করছে না, তেমনি বিএনপির অবস্থানের ভেতরেও অস্পষ্টতা আছে। দফার সংখ্যা বৃদ্ধি করার চেয়ে সাত দফার মাঝে তাদের মূল দাবিগুলো সরকারের কাছে পরিষ্কার করে উপস্থাপন করা উচিত এবং নিজেদের অবস্থান আরও স্পষ্ট, দৃঢ় এবং শক্তিশালী ভাবে তুলে ধরা উচিত, যেন তাতে কোন অস্পষ্টতা খুঁজে পাওয়া না যায়।”

[“Like the regime, BNP too is not making its position clear before everybody. Among their seven points, they should underline the basic points like lift of emergency, autocratic amendment of RPO etc. They should state their demands more adamantly, more confidently so that nobody finds any obscurity in there.”]

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“যে সরকার নিজে দূর্নীতির বিরুদ্ধে লড়াইর কথা বলে, অনিয়মের বিরুদ্ধে অবস্থানের কথা বলে, তাদের নিজেদের অবস্থা এতো ঠুনকো কেন সে বিষয়ে দেশের মানুষ স্পষ্টত বিভ্রান্ত। নতুন গণপ্রতিনিধিত্ব আইনের মাধ্যমে সরকারের সাত উপদেষ্টার নিয়োগলাভ অবৈধ হয়ে পড়েছে। দূর্নীতিবিরোধী, অনিয়মবিরোধী সুন্দর সুন্দর কথা বলে এই সরকারের ক্যাবিনেটের সত্তর ভাগই যদি আবৈধ হয়, তাহলে আমরা কোথায় যাবো? দেশের সংবিধানের এত অবহেলা কেন?”

[“The regime which earned its primitive moral ground by citing their battle against corruption and misappropriation, has amended the RPOs in such a way where their own cabinet now has 7 out of 10 appointments turned to completely illegal. Seven of the ten advisers have now no lawfulness to remain in the post. Why the constitution is so brutally ignored?”]

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“নির্বাচন কোন মহাসড়কে তো নেইই, কোন মাঝারি আকারের সড়কেও নেই, এবং এই নির্বাচনে যে শেষমেষ কোন কানাগলিতে গিয়ে পৌছোয়, সে-ই এখন দেখবার বিষয়।”

[“Election is never in a highway; rather it’s not even on an ordinary downtown street. It’s heading towards a dead end."]

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“দেশের মানুষের বোঝা উচিত, দেশের রাজনীতিবিদদের উপলব্ধি আসা উচিত, যে আঠারোই ডিসেম্বার আর যাই হোক, একটি সুষ্ঠু এবং পার্টিসিপেটরি নির্বাচনে অনুষ্ঠান কোন ক্রমেই এবং কোন ক্রমেই সম্ভব নয়।”

[“The people of Bangladesh should come by the realization and our politicians to realize this unbreakable fact that no free, fair and participatory election is possible to carry out on December 18, 2008, no way”]

Is Bangladesh

Heading Towards

The advisers completed their pre-dialogue talk with the political parties. The talk includes the pro-Khaleda faction of BNP with whom Election Commission didn’t like to sit. The Advisers talked among themselves and made a ‘synthesis’ of the pre-dialogue to present to the Chief Adviser. It is said that the chief adviser will address the nation but the moment yet not come.

In the mean time, AL wanted to stage nationwide hunger strike by its workers to demand the release of SK. Hasina. But the government didn’t permit it citing the state of emergency in the country. AL decided to stage the hunger strike in the capital Dhaka.

In the AL, once known as reformists are advocating for the presence of Hasina in the dialogue and demanding release of him.

On the other hand, Delwar led pro-Khaleda faction is demanding the resignation of CEC, release of Khaleda and not accepting any election under the present government. The other faction of BNP that led by Saifur Rahman is also demanding the release of Khaleda and is telling that without Khaleda, there will be no meaningful dialogue with the government and there will be no meaningful election.

Suransit Sengupta yesterday proposed for the inclusion of Army in the dialogue which was ejected y Matiya Chowdhury today.

Women’s Affairs Adviser Rasheda K Chowdhury said today in a meeting that for materializing the ‘Woman’s Development Policy’, social forces should cooperate with the political forces. In reaction, the Islamists are also organizing movement against the implementation of the policy.

All these means that no national consensus has so far developed among the political parties and the government. Professor Mujaffar Ahmed told recently that the campeign against corruption has been deminished. Is government compromising on the issue of corruption?

Mr. Anwar Chowdhury, the departing British Ambassador, in an interview said that UK government will not support an Army regime in Bangladesh.

In the backdrop of the price hike and electricity crisis, the conflict of the political arena is creating an uncertainty in the minds of the people. But is this uncertainty a calculated one or this is a mere the outcome of the natural forces that have developed from the conflicts of different interest groups in our politics.

The uncertainity increased more with the failure of the government to find out a safe exit for themselves and also for the failure of the governemnt to conclud much publicised corruption cases, at least some of them by this time.

Mr. Badrud Doza is a vibrant blogger who keeps writing on political issues & national interests of Bangladesh in his blog An Ordinary Citizen.

Dmitri Medvedev. The new president to take office on 7 May.

Earlier this year, I wrote a post Men With Magic Scepters In Hand, where I named three four persons being most loyal to the Russian President Vladimir Putin. They were FSB Chief Nikolay Patrushev, the then Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, 1^st Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev and the CDRPA Chief Alexander Beglov. When Medvedev was named as a candidate of President-elect, I was little surprised because I expected this for Patrushev. Many can ask why I haven’t thought Ivanov fit for this, but that’s a different chemistry. My choice for the new President-elect was Nikolay Patrushev. As an FSB Chief turned to President, he could be as good as Putin. But I think the rise of Medvedev, Putin has let the indication appear that Russia wants nothing stern in near future. After getting elected on March, Medvedev told he will be doing everything required for his country. This was may be to answer a Sky News correspondent who wanted to know what would be the role of Vladimir Putin to President Dmitri Medvedev.

The 1st Deputy Prime Minister has been the choice of Vladimir Putin, whom he will observe from now on as the chief of the United Russia Party. From left: Nikolay Patrushev (Chief of FSB), Dmitri Medvedev (1st Deputy Prime Minister), Sergei Ivanov (Minister of Defense)

So, the countdown now has begun. Vladimir Putin will remain the president of Russian Federation just for next seven days. From then, this is expected to be the start point of a new era of the RPA. The expectation to Medvedev is important because Vladimir Putin however has failed to end up with a considerably good reputation of a gentle president.

The assassination of journalist & human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya, allegedly conceptualized and aided by the Russian Government as well as Vladimir Putin in 2006. This issue could be argued. But the poisoning to death of a Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko in 2007, who was one of investigators of Anna’s murder, let all allegations against Putin reappear with doubled force. Litvinenko was a critic of Putin administration claiming Putin is turning Russia into a police state. Three weeks before dying, Litvinenko was poisoned by a former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoi. That doesn’t say that the Russian authority is responsible for the poisoning because Lugovoi was ‘once’ KGB. But later when Scotland Yard sent request for the cooperation of Russia to confirm their investigation efforts on Lugovoi, Russia formally declined that request due to barriers of Russian constituency. At that time, Putin took a little bit on British authority by saying, “It’s not our constitution that should be changed, it’s their brain.” Ultimately, the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya, Alexander Litvinenko, and the allegations on Putin’s close guy as Andrei Lugovoi, led the matter to be a scandalous flap, which ultimately left Andrei Lugovoi as one of the villains. Lugovoi receives unquestionable protection from the Russian authority as well as Putin administration from the most wanted list of British Security authority.

From British point of view, this whole matter was very suspicious and may be Russian authority is directly & indirectly responsible for these multiple murders & attempts by poisoning. From Russian point of view, especially considering statements & demonstrations of Nashi, British authority has engineered the murders of several Russian citizens to malign the reputation of Putin administration. But later, two journalists of British Daily Mail Stephen Wright and David Williams, Alexander Litvinenko was an MI6 agent under direct supervision of MI6/SIS Chief Sir John Scarlett. According to ‘unnamed intelligence & political sources”, they claimed Litvinenko received £2000 per month & was directly recruited by Director Scarlett.

Considering the retrospect, Dmitri Medvedev sounds much like a choice to go ahead with more legitimacy than Russian people experienced in Putin era. Russia is always found to be ran be a unclear parallel government formed by the security community of the country. Nikolay Patrushev could be a good leader to this kind of formation. But, Medvedev, in my views, is a more academic figure than to lead a country like Russia which has been led by Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, Alexei Kosygin as well as Vladimir Putin. What did he mean by “will be doing everything required for his country”, will be visible after seven days from now.

Read More:

Short biography of Vladimir Putin

Short biography of Dmitri Medvedev

Assassination of Anna Politkovskaya

Mysterious Death of Alexander Litvinenko

Short biography of Andrei Lugovoi